


The Start of Something New

by douchecasters



Category: One Direction
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-02-03
Updated: 2014-02-02
Packaged: 2018-01-11 00:28:47
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 17
Words: 54,443
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1166429
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/douchecasters/pseuds/douchecasters





	1. Chapter 1

“Lauren, Lauren, Lauren!” I yelled at her and nudged her and practically pushed her off her bed.

“What in the actual fuck do you want, Rach?” she scowled at me still not lifting her head from the powder blue pillow she buried her face in under her wavy brown hair.

“Look!” I said practically crying. I pointed her at my computer and she groaned – in a quite over dramatic way – and lifted her head only to find herself in hysterics as well. We drooled and cried and said ‘I can’t even’ numerous times before we can calm ourselves down. I had received a tweet from the ‘Official One Direction’ page on twitter telling me one guest and I had won a day with the boys themselves and a link to a phone number I had to ring. Once we had found our composures, I ripped my phone from its charger and dialed the number up.

“Rachel Jensen?” I muttered a quick yes into the phone. Lauren pressed her ear to the other side of my phone, it being the only barrier between our cheeks.

“Congratulations,” the woman said from the other end, “you are the lucky winner. Give me your address and there will be a limo by tomorrow morning at 9 am to pick up you and a guest and will drop you off at the boys’ flat for a day with One Direction!” I rambled out an address to her and she said they would be by tomorrow. We could hardly contain ourselves the entire day. We discussed what to wear and how to act with the boys over lunch. We didn’t really need to discuss it much because we had literally been preparing ourselves for this day for the past four years. We had been drooling over the idiots since 2012. Lauren was my younger, shorter, more innocent cousin who I’ve been closest to since her fucking birth and now we were exactly where we had planned to be. We were attending Uni in our new apartment in England. We had just moved here from the States. Well, Lauren had just moved here anyway. Being a year older, I moved out here last year to begin my life. We miss the family we had grown so close to but we still stay in touch.

—

The limo pulled up in front of our apartment complex at exactly 9 am and we hopped in the back to find two people – a man and a woman who were dressed in very formal wear – already seated in the back along with Paul. “Hey Paul,” I said not even thinking about it. My entire world was an actual fantasy so even though this was the first time we’d met I felt like I’ve known him for a little while – not as much as the boys.

“Right, so which one of you is Rachel Johnson?”

“Jensen, actually,” I corrected him. These two were obviously from Modest.

“Of course, my apologies. Anyway, we are from Modest, which is-”

“-Yeah we’re well aware of who you are,” I spoke up. Lauren elbowed me from next to me and I quickly apologized. I couldn’t help it. I hate Modest. They’re so controlling. They don’t let the boys have any fun and they make Larry stay in the closet. He continued ranting about the do’s and don’ts on what to do and how to act with the boys. I couldn’t believe what was actually happening right now; partially because I was on the way to meeting my heroes and partially because fucking management stepped in the way again. After we agreed to all the shit terms and conditions, we finally pulled up to the flat the boys were sharing and Paul walked us to the door, the limo pulling away with Modest still inside.

“Boys,” Paul called from opening the front door. Liam came rushing down the stairs – earphone in one ear – and he smiled at us with his perfectly white teeth. He had a t-shirt on with long red sleeves and a white base and some baggy blue jeans. He looked like he still had bed head because his fluffy brown hair was in disarray. “Hi!” he greeted us happy as ever. “You must be the two lovely ladies we’ll be spending the day with,” he smiled and I reached out to shake his hand, only to be pulled into a hug. “I’m more of a hugger,” he said. I laughed as he embraced Lauren and looked at Paul. “Thanks Paul! We got it from here.”

“Liam,” Paul warned.

“I know. I know. Don’t let them get into mischief.” He rolled his eyes only making us giggle. Paul walked back out the door and Liam raised his eyebrows at us. “Well, I’m Liam,” he said standing very straight and acting quite polite and formal. That needed to change. “Yes, Liam, we’re very much aware.” He just smirked at my smartass of a mouth. “Okay, then. What’s your name?”

“Rachel.”

“Mm. And you?” he looked at Lauren with a cocked eyebrow. She was looking at the ground with her hands tucked in her pockets and she looked up in bewilderment like she wasn’t expecting him to even speak to her. “Lauren,” she said just above a whisper. I felt pity for her. She was very timid and shy. However, once you got to know her and she became comfortable, she was a hell of a lot of everything. I guess I was the same, just more outgoing than her. Liam nodded and gave her a reassuring smile. He waved us towards his direction as he sauntered down the hallway adjacent with the stairs. It led us into a big ass kitchen with marble countertop and dark hard wood floors. There is an island in the middle with slender red hanging lights above it. To the left of the island was a big long wooden table with about ten chairs. One of those chairs was taken up by Harry, the fucking sex god, who was listening to his iPod. On the counter, there he was: Louis fucking William fucking Tomlinson. I had dreams and fantasies and stories of meeting him one day and now that I was seeing him here, it seemed like everything was in place. He was seated on the edge of the island and had his face in his phone. “Ahem,” Liam cleared his throat which got Lou’s attention. “Well hello there,” Lou said glancing up at us but quickly returning his attention to his phone. “Lou,” Liam said in a stern tone. “Yes babe?” I rolled my eyes. “I believe it’s not very polite to stick your face in your phone while you have guests,” I said in an as-a-matter-of-fact tone. That earned a smirk from Harry and a laugh from both Lauren and Liam and a cocked eyebrow from Louis. He hopped off the counter and gave me a weird look as he made his way towards me. “Well then, someone is a little bit of a smartass, aren’t they?”

“Well, there’s the pot calling the kettle,” I said back. Everyone else was just watching us.

“Fair enough,” he said. Could he not think of a better comeback?

“Uh, Lou, I think you were just out-sassed,” Harry said chuckling. Lauren smiled at his voice.

“Eh, I figured I better not be too rude to the lass. She’s only been here for two minutes,” he said not taking his eyes off of me. I smirked at him and he did the same. Zayn and Niall rushed in from another room and stopped to observe us.

“Boys, this is Rachel,” Liam said gesturing toward me.

“and that’s Lauren.” He pointed at Lauren who was standing right behind me. She’s scared she’s going to slip up and I’m only praying she will loosen up.

“Hello,” Harry said politely as he stood from his seat and took his spot next to Liam. Niall grabbed a cold piece of pizza out of the fridge and took stance next to his friends and Harry did the same. “Hi,” Niall said in a quite nervous tone and I saw him glancing at Lauren several times. “Ni, I know that look,” Louis said smiling wickedly at him. He took his gaze off of Lauren who was flushing red and he gave a stern look at Louis. They all just chuckled and Zayn put an arm around Niall’s shoulder.

“Have you quite finished?” I said to Lou and they all looked at me in shock.

“Nope, no way, that is my line, little missy.”

“That sucks because I believe I just said it.” He ignored me and turned the conversation onto Lauren. “Why so quiet, love? You seem to be shying away. Don’t worry, we don’t bite.” She smiled a bit and stepped out from behind me.

“Ah, see you’re perfectly fine,” Liam said smiling at her.

“Sorry, she’s not much of a talker,” I say smirking at her and she just elbowed me again which made them all laugh, except Niall, who just smiled at her.

“She may not be but that’s probably because you’ve always got yours open,” Lou speaks up again trying to regain his rightful place as queen of sass. Lauren giggled at his wittiness.

“Ah, see? She’s laughing because she knows I’m right.” He says with a smug look.

“No comeback. I’m not afraid to admit I have a big mouth,” I said shrugging and he nodded trying to prove his point. Louis Tomlinson is and always will be the ultimate queen of sass.

“Now that that’s settled, I’m quite excited for our little adventure we’re going to have today,” he said smiling a little more sweet.

“As am I.”

“Maybe we can learn a little bit about you guys first?” Harry asked and Lauren and I nodded in unison and followed them into the living room. It had a similar colour scheme to the kitchen with big brown leather couches and a huge entertainment centre. They all plopped down on the couches – Zayn, Harry, and Lou on one and Niall, Lauren, Liam and I on the other.

“So, tell us a bit about you two.”

“Well,-”

“No, no. I think I’ve heard just about enough of you today,” Lou said shushing me and I gave him an overdramatic appalled look. He pointed at Lauren telling her it was her turn to speak.

“C’mon love,” Niall said hesitantly putting a hand on her shoulder and I swear to god she looked like she would throw up at the touch. She didn’t like to pick favorites, but Niall was definitely it.

“Well, Rach and I are cousins. She’s a year older and I just moved out here with her to attend Uni from the States. She moved here last year.”

“What do you like to do for fun?”

“Tumblr.” That one word answer made all the boys chuckle and I could see her confidence boosted.

“Boys, we got us some Tumblr girls,” Liam said smirking.

“That a bad thing?”

“Not at all, Lauren,” Niall smiled.

“Well, then, what are we going to do today?” Zayn said looking around to the others waiting for someone to respond. I thought about it for a minute only to catch Lauren giving me a mischievous smile. I knew what she was thinking only because she had been bugging me forever to go but I always told her I was busy or I didn’t want to.

“What about the amusement park that just opened up?” she asked the boys and I knew from the look they all got this was going to be a long day.

We all hopped into this big van, Harry taking the wheel, with Liam in the passenger seat, Zayn, Louis and I in the middle row, and Lauren and Niall in the back. “Ugh,” I heard Lauren say and I look at her. “What?” her eyes set on the front seat in Harry’s direction and he looks a little confused. “Did I do something?”

“What? Oh no, you didn’t.”

“She just isn’t used to the steering wheel being on the right side of the car.” I finish for her.

“Figures, you Americans always do everything wrong,” Louis remarks. I stick my tongue out at him and he just rolled his eyes but I saw a small smile pull at his lips. I poked his cheek and he giggled. He fucking giggled. Because of me. Damn.

We pulled up to the entrance and made our way in. “What do you guys want to do first?”

“Well Zayn here doesn’t really enjoy rides that much so I’ll go with him,” Liam said wrapping an arm around his mate’s shoulder.

“Lauren and I will go together,” Niall said suddenly and so boldly. Lauren’s cheeks flushed and every one of the boys had a cocked eyebrow raised at Ni. By now his cheeks are as beet red as Lauren’s. “If-If you want, of course.” He stumbles out looking at Lauren. She nodded and the two of them were off on an adventure of their own.

“Well, that leaves me with Haz and I guess we can take Rachel,” he said smiling at me.

“Hey, I’ll be happy to go with Zayn and Liam,” I said shrugging and sauntering my way to the other two. I took a place in between the two and began to walk off with them when I felt a firm hand grip my shoulder and yank me back. “No, you’re coming with us.” Lou said and Zayn and Liam laughed while Haz just shook his head. “Come on, then.” He said walking in the other direction of Zayn and Liam. They wave at us and saunter off.

“Let’s ride that one first,” Lou said pointing up at the biggest ride in the park. Harry smiled signaling an okay from him and they both looked at me. I was never one to shy away from roller coasters but this one had a really steep hill climbing up and the cart currently in action was moving slow. I hated the parts where you go up on a roller coaster because they’re always the most suspenseful. I guess I took a moment to answer because Lou started to bawk at me like a chicken. “You too chicken to ride it? Not too badass now are ya?”

“No,” I scoffed, “I can ride it.” I winked at him. He giggled again and I was stopped in my tracks.

“A bit inappropriate don’t ya think, dearest?”

“Like you’re one to talk,” Harry said laughing. We got in line and waited not too long. However, I felt my stomach begin to churn as we neared the front of the line. Louis insisted on being in the front cart and each cart held four people. We eventually reached out turn and I sat down in between them – I don’t like being on the end of the car on a roller coaster – and I started to become really nervous. Then, Lou nonchalantly put his hand on mine. I looked up at him, with shock written all over my face, and he looked at me and gave me a small, shy, crooked smile. This was so unlike him, but I didn’t mind one bit. I smiled at him and he must have felt a little more confident because he curled his fingers around the edge of my hand, like he was trying to hold it. Louis Tomlinson was trying to hold my hand. Louis Tomlinson was trying to hold my hand. Louis Tomlinson was trying to hold my hand. The ride wasn’t too bad after all. Maybe because it was a total thrill after that one hill or maybe it was because Louis had his hand on mine, only when we didn’t have our arms in the air. We went through each ride like that, with a little more touching each time. At one point we had stopped for Harry to use the restroom. Lou and I stood under the wooden banana yellow canopy connected to the dingy bathroom buildings. There were baby blue lockers there for anyone who didn’t feel like carrying their shit around. I was leaning against them and Lou was kicking a rock around when he kicked it and it hit my toe and the fact that I was wearing flip flops. It hit me right on top of my toenail and it sent a burning sensation throughout my entire foot.

“Ouch, for fuck’s sake Louis!”

“Oh come on! It was just a little pebble.” I just rolled my eyes at him.

“You know, for someone who calls themselves a ‘fan’ of ours, you sure do sass me quite a bit, darling.”

“I sass everyone. You think just because your some ‘teen pop sensation’ you’re some kind of exception?”

“That’s how it is for every other fan I meet. They’re all usually quite polite.”

“Well you’re not. So, get used to it.”

“I guess I’ll have to if I’d want to see you again,” I shot my head up from the attention I was giving my now bruised toe.

“I like your attitude, Rachel.”

“I like my attitude as well.”

He took my phone out of my hands and I fought for it back but he was triumphant. He put his number into my phone and handed it back to me.

“You seem like you don’t want my number. I can take it out if you’d like?” I rolled my eyes at him and he gave me a smug smile. Harry came out just then.

“Well, Liam just texted me and told me he got a text from Paul. It’s time to start heading home.” All three of us trudged our ways back to the place we planned the rendezvous.

When we reached there, Zayn and Liam were sitting on a bench with chocolate ice cream. They waved and smiled at us. “Have you guys seen Ni and Lauren?” I ask. They both shake their heads and furrow their brows.

“Well, it can’t be too hard to miss them now,” Harry said chuckling. We followed his pointed finger to see Lauren and Niall exchanging a small sweet kiss by a fountain nearby. They see us looking and Niall starts laughing and takes hold of my cousin’s hand and led her to the rest of the gang. We all gave them a big smile when they reached us and they both were as red as before.

—

We all sort of lounged around at the boys flat after that waiting for our ride to come pick us up. Lauren and Niall couldn’t let go of each other for two seconds. Lou and I were the same way, just less obvious. We would lean against each other on the couch and hold each other’s hand in between our thighs. No one really noticed.

When the limo pulled up again it was just about sunset and Niall walked Lauren to the car and Lou and I trailed close behind. “Will you call?” he asked, almost in a nervous tone.

“Maybe. It’s for me to know and you to find out, Tommo,” I said smugly. He chuckled a bit and pressed his lips to my hair. I waved good bye to him and pried Lauren off of Niall and we drove into the car.


	2. Chapter 2

Lauren’s POV

“So after we walked away we just kind of chatted for a bit and then someone bumped into me and then he caught me. He pulled me back up and smiled and he blushed. Rach, he fucking blushed! So then we get on this one really spinny ride, kind of like the scrambler, and I couldn’t stop from falling into him so then eventually he just wrapped his arms around me and hugged me. Then, he bought me cotton candy and we sat on the bench in front of the fountain and he held my hand and told jokes. Then he said ‘I really like you, love. Stop being so shy.’ And then he kissed my cheek and then-”

“-Yes, Lauren, I know. Then he took your cotton candy and ate and all and for an apology he kissed you on your lips and you can’t believe this is happening and blah blah blah.” Rachel finished for me in a voice obviously trying to mock me. I started to sense that she was tired of hearing the story. After all, I did tell it to her five times already. Oh well, no matter. I had the one guy I’ve been dreaming about having since I started high school – sorry, secondary school; I’m still trying to learn Brit terms since I just moved here. We had sent corny texts back and forth since we were pried off of each other when we left the house. I missed him. I knew I was sounding all sappy at the moment but honestly I didn’t care.

“Sorry,” I muttered to her. She giggled and patted my shoulder. She understood why I was doing it. I mean, I freaked out and balled over the one shots and stories she had written for me and now it was real, how else was I supposed to handle it?

“So, what about you and Louis?” I asked her, because as usual I hadn’t the faintest idea as to what was going on.

“I don’t uh – I’m not sure. He gave me his number and told me he liked my attitude. He held my hand and kissed my hair.”

“Are you fucking kidding right now? he obviously likes – fancies – you. Call him now!” and before she could protest I took her phone and dialed up the number. She was jumping on my back and I held the phone as far away from her as possible while it rang. She finally froze when she heard him through the phone. “Hi.” She muttered. She quickly became comfortable with the conversation and maybe she didn’t. I don’t know because I tuned out once my phone started ringing. I saw Niall on the icon screen and picked it up.

“Hello?”

“Aye you.” I blushed at his Irish accent.

“How are you today?” he chuckled a bit before answering.

“I’m fine. N’ yourself?”

“Oh, just dandy. Rachel is talking to Lou right now.”

“Yeah, I know. Lou jolted t’ the other room when his phone started ringin’.”

I snickered and there was a moment of silence. “Don’t tell Rachel I said this,” he whispered, “but Lou really fancies her. He’s been dying waiting for her call.”

“Really?”

“Mhm. Checks his phone every two minutes.”

“So was there a reason you called?”

“Not particularly, just wanted to hear your voice. But since I have you, would you like to see each other tonight? Maybe Rachel and Lou could tag along.”

“The cinema?”

“Sounds perfect. Lou?” he was calling Louis in to ask him and I did the same with Rachel.

“What do you want? I’m trying to talk to him since you’re the one that made me call!”

“Well, Ni and I are going out to the cinema tonight and we were wondering if you and Lou would like to come?” she smiled a bit and I took that as a yes.

“Ni?”

“Yes, darling?”

“She said she’ll come.”

“Well how perfect because so did Lou. We’ll be over to pick you guys up at about 8, yeah?”

“Of course. See ya then. Bye-bye.”

Once I hung up Rachel rushed into her room looking for the perfect thing to wear but didn’t take her long because she just threw on a Beatles shirt with her favorite jeggings and belt on.

I myself chose a silver dress shirt with a pair of jeans and my converse.

—

The boys pulled up into the parking lot at about 7:45 and climbed their way to the third floor where our apartment was. I opened the door and Louis came rushing in. he seemed way too eager for this. Niall pecked me on the cheek. “Hello, love.”

“Hi,” I whispered.

“Lauren, are they here?” Rachel said walking down the hall with her hand frantically running through her hair. Her question was answered when she saw Louis standing there. He gave her a genuine smile. “Hello Rachel,” he said sweetly.

“Wow,” she said.

“Is something wrong?”

“No, I’m just impressed you were able to properly greet someone without having your face in your phone.” She said smugly. He just hummed in response.

“You’re sounding as sassy as ever,” he said in a polite tone.

“Hate to break this little throw-down up but we need to leave now. Niall!” I called for him only to see the blonde walk his way back from the kitchen with a pudding cup.

“Ni, we can eat at the movies. Let’s go,”

“But I want pudding.”

“Well, maybe you guys can stop here afterwards and you can have pudding then but we have to go.”

We all piled into the car they had driven here. Louis took the wheel and Rach got in the front seat while we took the back. Louis and Rachel started up their own conversation about which correct form of the colour gray – grey or gray – was used. So Niall and I just kind of listened and laughed at their pointless argument.

We reached the cinema and the boys paid for each of us. Niall bought us a bucket of popcorn to share and a pretzel with cheese for him. During the whole movie though, Louis and Rachel took turns slipping each other’s tongues down the other’s throat. As for Niall and I, we just snuggled up next to each other and watched the movie. About halfway through however, we both decided Lou and Rachel needed alone time and so we told them we would take a cab back and we would meet them there later.

Niall directed the cab driver where to go. I’ve only been here for a month and a half so didn’t really know my way through yet. The cab pulled up on a curb and Niall paid him twenty pounds for the ride. We didn’t have a certain destination so we just walked along the sidewalk. The moon was out and it was a Sunday evening and you could hear the faint sounds of people chatting in the background. The sidewalk was lit with the faint orange florescent lights coming through the windows of the boutiques and shoppes nearby. The air smelt of summer with just the right amount of humidity. I walked along side Niall with my hands to my sides and his in his pockets. No words were spoken between us as we both admired the night air. “Beautiful tonight,” he said looking up at the sky. I hummed in agreement and he smiled at me.

“Why are you so quiet?” he asked me still smiling.

“Mm, I don’t know. I guess I’m just afraid of saying the wrong thing and looking like an idiot.” His lips pursed and his brows furrowed a bit. He took his right hand out of his pocket and curled his fingers between mine. “I do that all the time. So, why don’t we just get used to saying stupid stuff together?”

“You’re so corny,” I laughed. He laughed to ad shrugged.

“Does it work?” I just rolled my eyes and held back my laugh.

“See? Then it doesn’t matter. It makes you smile. And a pretty lass like you should show off that smile.”

“Such a charmer, Horan.” I nudged his shoulder a bit and he laughed.

“Should I continue?” he asked me.

“If you’d like”

“Well, I like your eyes. I like how their green but also a little bit of blue and a little bit of gray all at the same time. I like your hair because it soft. I like your laugh because it’s so bubbly.”

“Oh stop it.”

“Can’t help it,” he shrugged. By now we had walked the length of the sidewalk and walked me across into the park. He backed up behind me and tickled my sides and I jumped and pushed him, making fall into the grass in a fit of laughter. “Jesus Christ! You didn’t have to knock me over!” he said still laughing.

“Well, you shouldn’t tickle me. Otherwise you suffer the consequences.”

He giggled and pulled me down with him. He lay across the green patch of grass with his legs stretched out and one arm to his side. I rested my head on his stomach and he draped his arm over my stomach and held a tight grip of my hand. I lay with my knees up and my hand in the air pointing out different constellations for him.

“Where’s the big dipper?”

“Right there,” I say pointing to a string of stars in the sky. “Why?”

“It’s always been my favorite. I used to think that you could sit inside the bowl on the bottom and look down at the earth.” I laughed at him.

“What?” he said chuckling.

“You’re just a dork,” I said through my giggles.

“Fine,” he got up and started walking the other way but when he realized I wasn’t going after him he just sat on a bench and buried his face in his hands. I could hear him fake crying quite loudly and I used every effort I had to hold back from laughing as I made my way over to him.

“I’m sorry, Ni,” I said sitting next to him and putting an arm around his shoulders. “Did I hurt your feelings?” His eyes peeked through the space of his fingers and he quickly pecked my lips and smiled.

“You’re such a child,” I said kissing his cheek.

“Like I said, it works,” he said shrugging, “I got you to kiss me just now didn’t I?”

“Don’t be cocky,” I said pointing a finger at him.

We made our way back to the apartment. When we reached it, it was about midnight and we tip-toed our way in, doing everything slowly and carefully. We reached the living room only to find Louis and Rachel curled up on the couch together with only the TV screen lighting the room. Lou was stretched out across the couch against the back of it with Rachel curled into his side, his arm wrapped around her body and his hand on her light brown hair. Her head was nestled under his chin and his arm was the only thing holding her from falling to the floor. Niall smiled at the sight and pulled out his iPhone to take a quick picture.

“Look at them,” he whispered cooing over the couple.

“Yeah, they are cute aren’t they?”

“I’ve never seen Louis so calm and shy around someone before.”

“You think he likes her?”

“Absolutely.” I smiled at his response. Rachel had always loved Louis and his sassy mouth. She let his name slip from her lips way over one hundred times a day and always found some way to reference something to him and the lads. Maybe she would get what she’s always dreamed of having: Lou’s heart. I know it sounds corny, but I’m not wrong. I plopped down on my bed and Niall put Up into the DVD player and laid down next to me. I put my head on his chest as his arms wrapped around my body and he kissed my head.

“I like you, Lauren.”

“What are the odds because I like you too,” I said smiling through a yawn. He chuckled sleepily and began running his hand up and down my back until I drifted off into my dreams.


	3. Chapter 3

I woke up sprawled on the couch in Lauren and Rachel’s flat. The way the sun was positioned in the sky I was guessing it was around 11 am. The air in this room smelt of Febreeze. The couch as red as my pants and it was quite cushiony as well.

I had a great night’s sleep. But, maybe it was more of the fact I was lying next to Rachel last night than the couch being comfy. Man, I had it bad for this girl. I could never admit it though. Only the lads knew; as far as I’m concerned anyway. Lauren had my little Ni wrapped around her finger. He probably blabbed it to her already. Shit. I’ll have to straighten that out later. I don’t want Rachel to know how I feel, for a couple reasons actually.

One is that I’m not sure if I’m ready to start another relationship. Even though El and I called it quits ages ago, I still haven’t even tried to start dating. I’m ashamed to admit it, but I’ve had my nights where I go to the pub, get drunk, and wake up next to a girl I didn’t even remember sleeping with that night. I don’t want to fuck it up and hurt Rachel. She seems pretty strong though. With the way she keeps up with my banter and laughs at the stupid shit I say, it makes my heart jump. Oh shit. I’m really in for it now.

Second is that maybe she doesn’t feel the same way. I have treated her like shit since we met and then I would be all nice but then go right back to being an arse. I’ve been sending her mixed signals and that’s not what girls like. It’s probably annoying the hell out of her. Also, she gives me the same rude comments back when I put her down so maybe she doesn’t like me. But then here she is snuggled under my head. Fuck, her hair is soft. She always smells wonderful and she’s quite witty. She’s also very beautiful. She has light brown hair down past her shoulders, sparkling blue eyes – about the same colour as mine – and these adorable thick rimmed big glasses. Plus, I’m not going to lie, she has a great rack.

I feel her shift beneath my chin and I absentmindedly began to pet her hair and she hummed a bit, making me chuckle.

“You like when I pet your hair, do ya?”

“A little, not as much as I like your tongue in my mouth.”

“Feisty.”

She shifts her head so I can see her blue eyes looking at me and she begins to lean in and I start to panic – for God knows what reason’ I’m usually so confident with the ladies – so I stammer out something to stop her.

“I’m hungry.”

“And I’m Rachel. Pleased to make your acquaintance.”

“Go make me some food, wench.” I instantly felt bad about saying it. I saw the disappointment in her eyes for a mere second before she just rolled them coughing out a laugh and heading towards the kitchen. I can tell her laugh was faked. God damn what the hell was I doing?! I’m such a dick. “Please, you don’t have to,” I mutter out.

She gives me a more genuine smile. “Anything specific you’d like?”

“Bacon and eggs? Please?”

“I suppose I could.” She pulls a pan out and starts cooking. I flip through the channels on the telle until I find The Walking Dead.

“Good choice.” She says pointing at the screen from the kitchen.

“Yeah? Who’s your favorite?”

“Darrel.”

“Of course, all the basics go for him.”

“Not just the basics, he’s a fucking sex god what do you expect of me?” Hearing her say that made me want to barf everywhere.

“Someone seems a little horny this morning. Mind if I try to fix that?” I said walking up from behind her and wrapping my arms around her waist. I run my lips along her neck and I feel her tense up underneath me. She claws her way out of my grasp and I feel disappointment and humiliation wash over me.

“Yes, I do mind because then these eggs are going to burn,” she said forcing a smile. It’s because I’ve treated her like rubbish.

I hide my pain and shrug at her and thank the fucking lord Lauren comes out of her room.

“Ah, good morning, Lauren. How are you?” I ask her as politely as I could. She smiled and nodded and didn’t say a word. The poor girl seems so intimidated by everyone.

“Lauren?” I hear my little Irish boy call from her bedroom. He pokes his head through the door frame. He smiles at the sight of his bird and she flushes red. They make a cute couple. So would me and Rachel. Damn it there I go again.

“Hey, Ni, want some eggs?” Rachel asks setting a plate down for Lauren.

“Sure, Rach thanks!” he takes a seat next to Lauren and gives her a butterfly kiss which I and Rachel simultaneously make a gag face at and we laugh. I join the rest of them for breakfast and Lauren and Ni continuously made googily eyes at one another the entire time. God, maybe he had it worse than I did. Maybe.

After breakfast, we were heading out the door. Niall wouldn’t let Lauren out of his embrace and he made her a promise to call her when he got home. This boy is so fucking sappy I will never understand.

—

The whole ride home, he rambled on and on about his night with Lauren and I finally had enough.

“Niall, I’m happy for you but please, shut the holy fuck up. Mate, I get it. You really like her. Her eyes are a beautiful sea green. Her hair is so wavy and oh my GOD.”

“Sorry,” he muttered and I sighed an apology to him as well.

“Ni, I just… I’m happy for you, really. I just want the same with Rachel.”

“Then go get it, mate. What’s stopping ya?”

I looked at him tucking my bottom lip under the other and let my eyes fall. He sighed – with a bit of annoyance I might add – and looked at me.

“Is it El?” he asked looking me in the eyes. I nodded.

“Louis, I get that you’re scared of starting another relationship. I get you’re scared of having your heart broken again or of rejection or of whatever the hell it is that’s stopping you. I get it. But, Rachel seems like a great girl. In fact, if she’s anything like Lauren, then she’s near perfection. Also, I don’t think you should be fearing rejection. I mean you guys fucking made out the entire movie last night and ended up cuddling up on the couch. Which is cute by the way, look,” he showed me a picture of Rach and I curled up on the couch together dreaming in our sleep. He was right. It was cute. We looked like two puzzle pieces fitting together perfectly.

“Anyway, she’s in to you. Lauren told me. But I see what you’re doing. You keep acting like an asshole. You do it hoping she won’t like you anymore and you won’t hurt her by doing it that way. You’re trying to end a great relationship that hasn’t even started. She’d be great with you. Give her a chance.”

There was a moment of silence as I scanned through every word he had just said to me. “Alright, I’ll call her when I get back home.” Niall beamed at me and patted my back.

“That’s my boy, Lou! Go get her and don’t let her go.”

“Alright, enough with the sappy bullshit,” I joked. He laughed and turned up the radio and we didn’t speak for the five minutes we had left of driving.

—

“Hello?” I heard Rachel’s voice through the other line and I swear my heart just melted.

“Hey, Rachel, it’s uh – it’s Louis.”

“Lou, I know. You put my number in your phone,” she giggled. My cheeks flushed red.

“Right, yes I remember. Anyways, I was uh – I was calling to see if – shit!” I whisper yelled as I attempted to land my bum on the counter only to miss by several inches and crash to the wooden floor. What the hell was going on? I was never this nervous around girls.

“Is everything okay there?”

“Yep, yep, it’s all just dandy. Anyway, I was wondering if it’d be alright if I – I took you on a proper date tonight.”

“Um, I don’t know. I’d have to check my schedule,” she said in a joking tone. I giggled at her and she did the same.

“I guess I’m free tonight.”

“So that’s a yes?”

“I suppose.”

“Excellent. I’ll be by at 7:30 sharp. See ya then, sweet cheeks!” I hung up the phone and let out a big sigh of relief. I checked the floor to see I had shattered a vase on my fall.

“Hey, um Paul?”

“Lou, what was that crash I heard?” Paul said walking into the entrance of the kitchen. He eyed the broken vase and then gave me a stern look.

“Oops,” I said shrugging. He shook his head and walked the other way.

“Wait! I need your help.”

“I’m not helping you this time, Lou. You clean it yourself.”

“No, no, not that,” I said grabbing his arm, “I need help with arranging a limo ride tonight. With some flowers – wait no, she hates flowers so no flowers. But, I need some wine and a hotel reservation and dinner reservations tonight.”

“Is it for that Rachel girl?” I nodded.

“Great. I’ll set up everything. You go get ready.”

—

I knocked on the flat door at 7:32 exactly and heard footsteps race towards the door. Rachel opened the door and I swear I almost fell to my knees. She had a long blue dress on with silver sequins along the waist line. She had silver hears and diamond and sapphire blue earrings.

“Hi,” she smiled.

“Hello, love.” I was trying to sound as confident as I possibly could.

“You said you’d be here at 7:30 sharp. It’s 7:33.”

“Fashionably late” she giggled which sent shivers down my spine. Her hair was pulled back into a neat bun but there was still some hanging down and she still had bangs which she looked stunning.

“You look beautiful,” I said. I hated being sappy but someone had to say it. She blushed which made me smile because I loved the shade of pink she turned.

“Thanks. You don’t look too shabby yourself,” she said pointing at my suit.

“When do I look shabby?” I said confidently. She rolled her eyes and took my hand in hers.

(Rachel’s outfit: http://www.polyvore.com/cgi/set?id=77472023)

“It’s no wonder you have a flat that’s so dingy. That outfit looks fucking expensive,” I said as we drove to the restaurant Paul set up. She laughed. Yes!

“I got this dress from a thrift store last year for my prom. Same with the shoes and the earrings were my mother’s. They were her favorite. She gave them to me when I moved out here.”

“You really do look great.” I hopped out of the car and opened her door for her. It was a French restaurant called Lou Pierre’s. I guess I knew why it stuck out to Paul.

“You’re not being cute, ya know,” she said laughing and pointing at the title.

“Damn, I thought I was always cute.”

“You are.”

“Thanks, love!”

The dinner was perfect. A couple people had glanced our way, recognizing me, but no one interrupted the date and I was very thankful. We were in the limo and on our way to the hotel. Once inside, I threw her over my shoulder and carried her to our room. Inside, Lauren had dropped off any necessities she had needed for that night with a note attached with a smiley on it. Ni had did the same thing for me. I set her down in front of me once the hotel door was closed and took her hands in mine. I swung our arms back and forth and she gave me a sweet smile.

“I had a great time tonight, Louis,” she said looking at me with those damn blue eyes.

“I did too,” I paused a moment, “Rach?”

“Hmm?”

“I really like you. I’m sorry for acting like a dick this whole time.” She didn’t say a word but all she did was hug me and tuck her head into my chest.

“I’m sorry too,” she whispered.

“You don’t need to be sorry, love. I deserved everything I had coming to me. Plus, I like your little attitude. And I like you.”

“I like you too.”

“Am I being too corny?”

“No I think you have the correct amount of corn in your talk. Continue.” She laughed. I chuckled at her even though it was a stupid joke. I just thought it was so damn cute how she thought she was funny and how she laughed at her own joke.

“I know I was acting like a jerk but I only did that because I was scared of how much I like you. I’m not very good at this whole relationship stuff. But I’d like to give it a go for you – with you – if you would like that too. What I’m trying to say is um, Rachel, will – I would – um,”

Where the hell was my courage - or fucking words?

“Go ahead, ask me,” she said smiling smugly. I laughed a bit too loudly and I finally found confidence in my words.

“Rachel Jensen, it would be the greatest pleasure if you were to accept my proposal as to being your boyfriend.”

“Well, I suppose I could.”

“Is that a yes?”

She smiled and wrapped her arms around my neck and pressed her sweet pink lips to mine. I wrapped my arms around her waist and walked backwards to the – lips still latched to hers. I felt the back of my knees hit the bed and I sat down on the edge and she straddled me. I pushed my tongue between her lips and our tongues danced for dominance. She allowed me to win and I flipped her onto her back – gently of course – and put my knees on either side of her, never letting go of her lips. She tried to start undressing me and normally I would allow that. I would want that. But, not this time. Not for any reason against her though. I just wanted her to take the time and I wanted to cherish her about it and I would find another perfect night but not tonight so I stopped her.

“No, Rach, not tonight.” I managed to say in between kisses. I pulled her off and her eyes furrowed together and she frowned.

“Believe me, I want to. It’s just meant for a different night, darling. Now, Lauren left you some clothes in the bathroom. Go get changed into pajamas and when you come back we can watch a movie of your choice.” She nodded and pecked me on the lips before entering the bathroom. I quickly switched my clothes into the PJ’s Niall had left for me and she returned. Even in sweats and a band t-shirt she was stunning. We cuddled under the covers and watched The Lion King. She quoted almost every line but I didn’t mind one bit. She soon began drifting off and I could tell because she stopped talking. “So, I’ll take that as a yes,” I said smugly and she laughed sleepily.

“Goodnight, Louis.”

“Goodnight, bug. Sweet dreams.”

And soon we both fell into slumber.


	4. Chapter 4

Niall’s POV

“You are probably the cheesiest person to ever walk this planet.”

“I’d take offense to that except it makes you smile. That’s my favorite hobby lately.”

“What is?”

“Making you smile.”

Lauren giggled through the phone and I couldn’t help but smile and laugh myself. She was contagious.

“Flattery will get you nowhere.”

“Really? Does that mean it wouldn’t get me a date with you tonight?”

“Are you only taking me out on a date because you don’t want Lou to look like the better man?”

“Why of course not! C’mon, I’m not that bad of a guy.” There was a moment of both of us chuckling before it quieted down.

“I really would like to take you out, Lauren.” I don’t know why I felt so confident. I never was around girls. I’m like the exact opposite of Louis. But something about this girl made me so damn comfortable with her and myself. I was a little more bold and cheeky. I normally wasn’t a cheesy, corny guy. I was sappy, but never corny. But, she liked corny. She liked being cliché and very ‘movie like’ as she said it, and if that was what it took, then I had no problem doing it. She just wanted her moment as the princess and I would be the prince that gave that moment to her. Maybe even the prince she would kiss a happily ever after to.

“I’ll be ready at eight. I’m not wearing anything fancy though. That’s not my thing.” I rolled my eyes but laughed all the same.

“Fine, fine. See ya tonight then.” I hit end – reluctantly – and thought about where we should go. At first, I was thinking fancy dinner to sweep her off her feet. But, apparently, she isn’t in to that. She’s a fun girl. She likes to do the stupidest stuff and I think it’s adorable.

I hear the front door open and the sound of a set of keys hitting the table and I rush downstairs because I know it’s Lou.

“Hey, mate! How’d it go?” I said grabbing his shoulders from behind and shaking him a bit. He just let a sigh slip through his smile and his eyes travel the room before they land on me. He didn’t say a word to me. He just smiled more and wrapped his arms around me, pulling me into a hug. I was stunned at first but soon enough my arms were around his shoulders.

“Thanks, Nialler. I wouldn’t have done it without you.” I smiled into his shoulder and patted his back.

“No problem, Louis. Guessing it went good?” I asked as we untangled ourselves from the other’s arms.

“Fantastic. I got myself a true lady, Ni. We had a nice dinner, a few laughs, and went we got back to the hotel,” he paused and smirked a bit.

“When we got back to the hotel, that’s when she kissed me. It wasn’t like hot and messy like it was at the cinema. It was real. It was a real kiss. I felt like I didn’t know what air was. I felt like I was floating and I haven’t felt like that in a long time. She kissed me after I asked her to be my girlfriend and my favorite part about it was how she never said yes, but I knew it was a yes because she did kiss me.”

“Yeah? Did you uh – ya know,” I said smirking at him. I was going to ask him ‘did ya get laid’ but I felt like the term ‘laid’ would be wrong to use at this moment. Because Rachel didn’t seem like the type of girl that you’d get ‘laid’ by. She seemed like the one that you’d have sex with out of care and maybe even love. Louis shot his head up at me and shook his head roughly.

“No, no, we almost did. But I uh – I stopped her,” he whispered the last part of his sentence.

“Do you mind me asking why? Don’t ya like this girl?”

“Yes and that’s exactly why I stopped it.” He said in a rushed tone. “She doesn’t deserve to be ‘laid’ on the first night,” he continued. Judging by how he used the word ‘laid’ in a sour tone, I was smart not to use it.

“I just met the girl and I want our relationship to grow. I want to spend time with her and I want to come to love everything about her before I get to have sex with her. I want to be able to know it’s not just sex. I want her to know that too. I want her to love me and I to love her when we have sex because that way it isn’t sex, it’s making love. that’s what you’re supposed to do with girlfriend.” I have never heard Louis be so sappy in his life. I was a bit in shock by what he said.

“Hey, just because I’m being sappy, doesn’t mean you’re more of a man than I am, Horan. I can still beat the living shit out of you,” he joked. I rolled my eyes and he laughed. “Only if I wanted to though,” he said through his laughs.

“Whatever, Tommo. I need to go get ready. I got a date tonight,” I said with a wink.

“Good luck,” he yelled at me as I walked up the stairs. I rubbed my hands together back and forth as my eyes searched my closet for something to wear. I decided I wouldn’t be too classy because I knew she didn’t want me to be, so I threw on a plain white t-shirt and some baggy jeans. I put on my high top white sneakers and my red Bulls snapback, being that she was from Chicago.

I don’t care if she said she was going to be ready at 8 because it was 5:30 now and I was dying to see her. I got in my car and drove around a bit before going to her flat. I had to give the lass a little bit of time to prepare herself, right? It was now almost 7 when I reached her door and I knocked on it continuously until she opened the door.

“Hello, Lauren.” I said with a smile when she opened the door. She was in a t-shirt and jeans and had just gotten out of the shower by the looks of her hair.

“You’re a prick, ya know that, Ni?”

“How rude.”

“Why are you here early?”

“Couldn’t wait to see you, love,” I said rocking back and forth on my feet and giving her a toothy smile.

“How cute.” She stepped out of the way and let me in. she stood near the door as I walked in and I stopped and planted a peck on her cheek making her blush my favorite shade of pink.

“I like when you blush,” I said poking her cheeks. That made her blush even more and I laughed.

“Do you mind waiting a few minutes?” she said pointing behind her, “I’m almost done I just have to fix my hair.”

“You’re hair looks fine.”

“Niall, it is freezing outside. I’m not going out with wet hair.”

I was a little embarrassed because her hair was obviously wet and I guess I was just trying to be cheeky. I just took a seat on the couch, my cheeks beet red, and she laughed. She kissed my lips quickly before heading back to the bathroom and I smiled.

—

We made it to the pizzeria at around 7:45 and I was starving.

“What kind do you want?”

“Pepperoni,” she said reading some sign by the door.

“Sausage is better.”

“Whatever, fine. Get what you want.” She said it so sarcastically I knew she would hold it against me.

“Do you want pepperoni?” I sighed.

“No, seriously, I don’t mind.” I kissed her temple and she smiled at me.

“You’re cute sometimes,” she says poking my arm.

“Hey! I’m fucking adorable.”

“Course you are.” She says laughing.

“I don’t care how sarcastic that was, I’m just going to believe you said it with a true heart.” I said laughing.

“I meant it. You are cute,” she said and I took her hand in mine as the waitress came with our sausage pizza.

“Well, so are you.”

We finished dinner and went to an arcade where we could find any game to play against each other because, let me tell ya, Lauren was quite competitive sometimes. She beat me in ski ball… twice. But I beat her in car racing because – let’s just say I don’t think I will ever get in a car with her behind the wheel. She took constant turns into walls and each time she laughed and then I laugh because her laugh is just so damn cute.

I walked her back to her apartment and planted a kiss on her cheek.

“I had a lovely time tonight, darling.” I said swaying our hands back and forth.

“Oh stop it,” she said flicking her wrist overdramatically making me laugh.

“Seriously, this was great.” She wrapped her arms around my neck and pressed her lips to mine before I could even react. I wrapped my arms around her neck and pulled her closer so our bodies were pressed together. The kiss was slow and sweet and when we parted there was a little noise like in the movies and I don’t know why but it made me happy. It was the kind of kiss you didn’t expect and when it happened you had to catch your breath.

“What was that for?” I whispered looking her in the eyes, still locked in her embrace.

“For making me smile. For making me happy. Not just these past couple days we’ve been hanging out but throughout the time I even began liking One Direction. You’ve always made me smile and it was nice these past couple days.”

“I like making you happy. And I’d like to be around to see myself make you happy, only if you’d like that too.”

“Are you asking me to be your girlfriend?”

“I suppose I am. Whatdya say?”

“I say I’d be honored.”

“Fantastic,” I said kissing her sweet pink lips, “Now let’s go celebrate with pudding!” I run into the apartment with her laughing and trailing behind me. I reached the kitchen and grabbed a pudding cup and ran back to the couch. I was just about to peel off the top when my phone began playing ‘You Got a Friend in me’ signaling a call from Liam.

“Ugh,” I say reaching to my back pocket.

“Liam, this better be good. I was just about to-”

“Niall, management is looking for you. They’re here at the flat as we speak. They have something important to tell you and Lauren.”

“What is it?”

“I don’t know just get your ass down here!” he whisper yelled into the phone. Liam hardly swears – hardly – so I knew this must be some serious shit.

“I’m on my way,” I said right before hitting end.

“What’s wrong?”

“Management needs to speak to us.”

“Us as in you and I?” I nodded and took her hand and quickly made our way to the car.

—

We walked in and raced our way into the living room hand in hand, Lauren trailing behind. We stopped in our tracks to see two representatives – a man and I woman - from Modest sitting in the living room with Paul, two other big security guards, and the boys and Rachel. She was sitting down by Louis with his hand around the small of her back. Lauren stood hiding behind the arm that held her hand with her nose pressed against my back looking over my shoulder. She was so damn shy sometimes.

“Niall, glad you can join us. We need to have a serious talk,” one of the reps said.

“Nice to see you again, Lauren. Do you remember us from the limo?” the other – the woman - asked her. She nodded her head not making a sound. she smiled a bit at her before locking her eyes on me.

“Niall and Louis, we understand that you’ve grown to have a – ‘fascination’ if you will – with these girls you met the other day.

“Yes, we have,” Lou said sternly.

“In fact, we recently became a couple,” I added.

“Us as well,” Louis finished.

“Well that’s a shame. We were hoping to catch you before you did that.”

“Why? Is there a problem here?” Zayn asked furrowing his eyebrows.

“Well, yes, there is,” the man said.

“You see,” the woman continued, “the fans are finding it a great thing that 2/5 of the band is still single. It’s easier to believe that they would have a chance with you guys. Which makes you more desirable for the fans.”

“What are you saying?” I asked clenching my jaw.

“We’re saying that you need to break off this little ‘love fest’ you four have going on before it becomes public.”

“That’s complete bullshit!” Harry said standing from his place on the couch.

“Harry, this doesn’t concern you,” the woman said motioning him to sit down.

“No, he’s right! You guys shouldn’t be telling them not to date their girlfriends! It is bullshit!” Liam yelled back.

“Look, the fans-”

“The fans should be happy that Louis finally found someone to make him happy!” I said joining in with this little retaliation the boys started.

“Same for Niall over there! Look at how she’s hiding behind him for God sakes! She’s afraid of you!” Lou chimed in. I felt Lauren tremble just a bit behind me so I gripped her hand tighter.

“Boys,” the man said gesturing at the body guards who had been silent in the corner, “Would you please escort these ladies out? We need to chat with the boys.”

The two men grabbed Rachel before Louis could react and soon he was chasing after them and I gripped Lauren tighter but they ripped her from my grasp.

“Ow! Shit!” she shouted from the yank on her arm. “Hey! You just fucking hurt her let her go!” the boys and I were all trying to stop them but they were out the door before anyone got to them. “Boys! Boys! It’s over! We’ll let you know when we find someone for you two to date, yeah?” They were out the door as well.

“Where the hell are they taking them?!” Louis yelled.

“Can they do that?” I yelled looking at Paul.

“They’ve been doing it for years,” Harry said obviously pissed off.

“No, no. Not this time,” Paul said shaking his head, “Louis, Niall, come on. We’re going to the girls. I’ll deal with those dumbasses from Modest later.”

“Paul, you’re going to get yourself fired,” Liam said.

“You think I give a shit? I mean yeah you guys are pain in the asses but I’ve been raising you for the past five years. You two were finally happy, even for just a couple days, and I’m not letting them take that away. Come on,” he said grabbing his coat. All five of us hugged him before we drove off. He snuck us into the alleyway of the complex and we climbed the fire escape to the top. Paul said he’d be back at five in the morning and it was ten at night now so we had time. I knocked on the window and Lauren and Rachel both rushed to it. They had tear stains on their cheeks and my heart broke. We climbed in the window and soon Lauren was in my arms and Rach in Lou’s.

“We have to leave at five,” Lou said. The two of them rushed off to her room and I looked at Lauren.

“We’ll get through it,” I promised her. She hugged me and kissed me again before I spoke up.

“Where’s my pudding cup?”

She laughs and hands me one she pulled from the fridge and I sit down next to her and put a dot on her nose. She giggles and rubs it on my face making me laugh. I kissed her cheek and then her lips. The heat began to build and soon she was on her back on the couch and I towered over her drowning her in kisses. She tried taking my shirt off but I stopped her. I thought about what Louis had said earlier and I felt the same for Lauren and I decided to go with his idea.

“Not tonight. We only just met.” I said smirking. She smiled a bit and I cuddled up to her on the couch and threw a blanket over the two of us. I kissed her temple and wrapped my arm around her waist pulling her back into my chest.

“We’ll get through it, baby. I’m not letting fucking management stopping me from putting a smile on your face.” She kissed my lips one more time and I hummed a melody to her I made up in my head before she drifted off to sleep. I pulled her closer and savored every moment of this because I was only hoping we’d be able to get past this shit.


	5. Chapter 5

_‘Daddy! Daddy!’ I heard a little voice squeal. I was sitting in what looked to be a living room. It had an entertainment center in front of me and I was sitting on a green rocking couch in front of a big window. Just then, a little girl about the age of four came running down the hall a little bit a ways from me giggling uncontrollably. She had bouncy caramel coloured hair with sparkling blue eyes and a wide smile with just a couple missing teeth, waiting to grow in. She had chubby legs and arms that you would only find on a toddler and I smiled as my heart warmed at the sight of her. She jumped into my arms giggling still and flashing her bright blue eyes at me. ‘Hide me! Before he finds me!’ she said climbing over my shoulder and behind my back. Louis poked his head around the corner then and smiled at me. ‘Babe, have you seen Emma anywhere?’ he said in a voice of fake curiosity, obviously seeing her little body hiding behind me and hearing her muffled giggles. ‘Nope’ I said popping the p and shaking my head. He planted a light kiss on my lips before reaching over my shoulder and taking her under her arms, both of them laughing making me join in as well. He tickled her sides – still holding her in the air – making her squirm and squeal. ‘Louis’ a voice called from down the hall. I didn’t see the owner of the voice but they were intimidating me and I don’t know why. Fear struck over me as a man in a suit came from down the hall and into the living room. Behind him trailed the other four boys chained by the hands with their heads dropped. Behind them, Eleanor stood there smiling at Emma. She opened her arms, crouching down, and Emma went running to her. El scooped her up in her arms and walked out the door. ‘Wait!’ I shouted wanting my daughter back. I tried to get up but something was holding me to the couch, although nothing really was. I just couldn’t get up._

_‘Louis’ the man said again, bending his finger back and forth summoning Louis. He dropped his head and trudged over there, in defeat, and stood behind Liam who was the last in the row of boys. He held his wrists out in front of him, pushed together, and the man wrapped the chains around his hands as well. The man stood in front of Harry, who was in the front, and grabbed the excess chain and pulled them out the door like dogs on a leash. I was left in the room, alone, with nothing but the tragic memory._

“Rachel, Rachel! Wake up!” I felt my body rocking back and forth and firm hands on either of my shoulders. I flickered my eyes open, feeling them burn with tears I had poured out in my sleep. Louis was hovering over me looking at me with big blue eyes filled with worry, sadness, and confusion. I instantly sat up and wrapped my arms around his neck, staining the shoulder of his white tee in tears. He shushed me and ran his hand up and down my back telling me everything was okay. But it wasn’t. I knew it and he knew it too.

Once I calmed down, I explained every last detail of my dream to him and he gripped my hand tighter every time I let my head fall to wipe tears away.

“It was just a dream, darling. I’m not going anywhere,” he said kissing my head and smiling softly at me.

“Modest always wins, Lou.” He knew it was true to but he continued to shake his head as an eager grin grew upon his face.

“Not this time, love. Look!” he said pulling his phone from the bedside table. He unlocked the screen and I noticed the time before he did. 7:34am.

“Shit, Louis you were supposed to leave by five!” I shouted nudging him a bit. He simply shook his head and chuckled lightly. He pulled twitter up on his phone and showed me a tweet from Zayn. I found it quite odd because Zayn hardly ever tweets. It read:

Love shouldn’t be separated for more fame and publicity

“You see, our dear friend Zayn took a risky leap sending this out. He was responded to immediately with news reporters wanting to talk to him about the meaning of the tweet. Simon saw it and called Harry, wanting to know what the hell was actually going on. Turns out, Simon had no idea of this bullshit Modest was doing and he didn’t agree to it one bit. He threatened them, telling them Zayn would be allowed to speak out against management and tell the story unless the ‘banishment’ would become void immediately. Trying to protect their reputation, they talked it over and decided that ‘you and Lauren would be ideal girlfriends and adored by many fans, considering you were a fan yourself just a few days ago like them.’ Don’t ya see, Rach? Zayn did something we had been afraid to do since we started this! There’s no threat to our relationship now. It’s just you, me, and smooth sailing!” he said wrapping an arm around my shoulder. I smiled and pressed my lips to his and it felt like we were there forever. He smiled into the kiss making me giggle and then he laughed and I felt like I was in the beginning of my dream again except this time I didn’t have to let him go.

“So, Emma, huh?” he asked looking at me with a smug smile.

“Yeah,” I shrugged.

“May I ask why that particular name?”

“It means to be ambitious, bright, bold, and quick tempered.” I said with a wink.

“Sounds like our kid,” he says nodding and giving me a smile. “Emma Tomlinson. I like it.”

I smiled at him and he kissed my forehead. “C’mon, then. Let’s go get some breakfast.” We walk out into the living room to see Niall with his arms wrapped firmly around Lauren’s waist and he hands and fore arm resting up on his chest between them. She’s wearing his Bulls snapback and kissing him and smiling into the kiss and she finally looked happy. Her smile has never been so big. He’s smiling as well and laughing and they’re in their own little world.

Louis wraps his arm around the small of my back as we both admired the couple.

“Ah, my little boy, all grown up,” Louis says wiping away a fake tear over dramatically.

“Oh, fuck off, Tommo,” Niall said laughing, “we’re trying to celebrate.”

“Lauren, you have your own room ya know. And we’d like to have breakfast,” I said laughing a bit at her. She threw her middle finger up at me but Niall let her go as soon as the word breakfast slipped my lips.

“What’s for breakfast?” he asked, losing all attention from Lauren. She sighed behind him and he looked back and smiled for her. “It doesn’t matter though because I’m with you,” he said poking her nose.

“You’re lucky you’re cheeky,” she said shaking her head and laughing. He kissed her on her lips again and spun her around making her laugh.

“Oi! Get a room, mate!” Louis said in fake disgust. Niall stuck his tongue out at him and then slipped it down Lauren’s throat which she accepted with enthusiasm. Lou and I both made gag faces and soon all four of us were sitting around the little coffee table, crisscross applesauce style, and celebrating our victory over Modest.

Lauren made us margaritas and I invited the rest of the boys over to celebrate.

When they got there, they all gave us hugs and congratulated us and we all thanked Zayn because this would have never happened without him. We all had margaritas and beers and laughs and chuckles. At one point, Niall stood up and lifted his beer in the air.

“I’d like to make a toast to Zayn,” he said smiling fondly at his best mate.

“You had the courage to do something we had been so afraid of doing our entire time as a band and now I think we’ve gained a little control back in our hands. Without you, I wouldn’t be sitting next to this wonderful girl,” he said as he gestured to Lauren giving her a quick wink, “In fact, none of us would even be in here. Thanks buddy.” He said fist pumping Zayn who had a slight shade of pink brushed across his tan cheeks.

“Yeah, we owe you big time, Z-boy,” Lou said kissing my cheek. Lauren smiled at us but I pretended not to notice.

Everyone raised their glasses then and clinked them together, numerous shouts of praise for Zayn sounding out. We all tipped our heads back and took a swig of whatever it was we were drinking. We were all sober and making sure not to drink too much, but some of us were a bit tipsy.

We ended up pulling out Yahtzee and we were all having a good time, except for Niall.

“Jesus fucking Christ, I just need my damn twos!” he said shaking the cup wildly before spilling the dice out with no success. Everyone laughed but Niall wasn’t amused and Lauren knew it. She took his hand in hers while Liam took his turn and offered him a slight smile. His scowl quickly flipped to a grin he muttered an apology to her. No one could hear it but I could make out what he was saying by watching him. Harry ended up winning just by a few points followed by me and then Liam and Harry made sure everyone knew he won. Niall, however, came in last and I’ve seen my six year old cousin act more mature then him.

“It’s a stupid game, nothing but chance. I never liked the game in the first place.” Meanwhile, Harry was celebrating with a victory dance.

“Don’t let the win get to your head, mate,” Zayn said laughing making us all join in. Harry shrugged and bent down and wrapped his arms around Niall’s shoulders and pressed his chin into his neck. At one point, Zayn got up to go to the bathroom and a few minutes later he called down the hall.

“Hey, Rachel? Do you have any soap anywhere I could use?”

“Yeah, one second,” I said getting up. I walked past Zayn down the hall and into my room and searched my bathroom for some soap. He stood by the doorway and when I handed it to him I took the opportunity while we were alone.

“Hey Zayn?”

“Yeah?”

“Thank you,” I said wrapping my arms around him and pulling him into a tight hug. He chuckled a bit.

“You’re welcome, do you know why I did it?” I shook my head no and he pulled me back and looked at me but still kept his arms around me.

“You’ve made Lou really happy you know that?” I nodded and he continued.

“He hasn’t been that happy since El and I didn’t think I would ever see that same toothy grin he had until you threw out that first sassy remark to him a couple days ago. He smiled. And it wasn’t a ‘smile for the camera’ smile either. It was a real, genuine smile. My favorite Louis smile that I haven’t seen in almost two years was back. And it was all because of you. So, really, I should be the one to thank you. I might have saved a relationship, but you saved my best mate. And I’ve been waiting for you to come around almost as long as he has. So thank you.” He wrapped his arms around me again and I squeezed him even tighter.

“You’re welcome,” I whispered.

“Just don’t hurt him, please?” I heard the genuine worry for his mate in his voice and it made my heart break a little.

“I promise.”

After that, we both walked back out into the living room. Harry was sprawled out across the couch sleeping and Lou was getting ready to draw a mustache on him.

“Wait Louis,” I said in an urgent voice. He looked up at me, a little disappointed I stopped him but his smile quickly returned when I handed him a Sharpie saying, “it has to be a permanent one.” He chuckled and began drawing a penis.

The rest of the night was filled with pointless stories, stupid jokes, and a lot of laughter. Harry stayed unconscious and soon it was time to go. Liam and Zayn got in the car and asked if they should get Harry. Lauren told them he’d be fine there and Niall said he’d drive him home in the morning. The two boys said their final goodbyes. Zayn gave me a final wink from the passenger’s seat before Liam drove off.

Lou and I came back into the apartment to find Harry still passed out on the couch. I smiled because he did truly look like a cupcake. I pulled a throw blanket over him and Lou smiled and wrapped his arm around my shoulder. “He’s cute when he’s asleep, huh?” he said chuckling to himself. I giggled too and nodded slightly.

Lou helped me pick up all the red Solo cups around the room. He also cleaned up the glass cups and the blender and anything that was lying around the room and the kitchen. When we finished, we walked past Lauren’s room to see her wrapped in Niall’s arms and her head snuggled under his chin, both of them fast asleep. My little cousin was in the arms of someone she had just wanted to meet her entire teenage years. I guess that’s how it was for me now, too. I had to be sure to thank Niall later as well. Lou and I headed off to my room then and climbed under the covers. We exchanged sweet kisses and small talk about the best moments of the evening and soon it was just silence. I lay in his arms as he twirled my hair with his fingers and I’ve never felt more comfortable.

“Now what?” I ask him after a few minutes of silence.

“What do you mean, love?”

“I mean, now that Modest is taken care of, what do we do?”

“Well, we live our lives together of course.”

“Is it all that simple?”

He was quiet a moment as he pondered it. I guess he had never had just a simple relationship before either.

“I guess it is. Sure, we’ll still have to deal with fans. But I guess we’re just going to be together. Simple as that.” He kissed my head one more time before speaking again.

“Defeating Modest was a rough challenge but we did it. That adventure is over. I think it’s the time to start a new adventure. It’s the start of something new, Rachel.”

I smiled at him and pressed my lips to his. He began singing some melody I didn’t recognize but it was beautiful all the same. “What’s that song your humming?” I asked in a groggy voice, snuggling my head up to his chest.

“It’s a melody my mum used to sing to me when I was young. Don’t remember the words but only the melody, I guess.”

“It’s beautiful.”

“You’re beautiful,” he kissed my temple and I blushed.

“Now, go to sleep, baby. I promise I’ll be right here in the morning.”

He continued humming his melody before I drifted off into a deep slumber. I had the same dream I had the night before that night. Except, instead of walking into the hall with chains, the other four boys came in and had toys for Emma. And instead of Eleanor being there, it was Lauren. Emma jumped into her arms and cooed over her. Lauren was her favorite person besides Lou and I and it made me happy. Niall was carrying a baby carrier holding his and Lauren’s six-month old son, Joshua. Lauren held Emma on her lap on the couch and helped her hold Joshua. He smiled up at Emma and she beamed and would talk nonstop about it making Louis smile. He smiled at me then and planted a kiss on my cheek.

My subconscious gave me some definite reassurance that night.


	6. Chapter 6

Lauren’s POV

“Louis, you drew a penis on me? Really?” I woke to Harry yelling at Lou for his ‘artwork’ he created the night before. It was silent for a moment before Harry spoke up again.

“Get off of me, Lou. Can’t you just grow up?” I’m assuming Louis was trying to hug him.

“Oh, come on now, Hazza! Where’s that smile?” There was complete silence once again before Harry let out a small giggle, making Lou erupt with laughter.

“There we go! Now, come on, mate, I’ll help you wash it off then.”

I heard Niall chuckle behind me just then. He had been playing with my hair the whole time. I just didn’t budge and pretended to still be asleep. I smiled at his laugh and rolled myself onto my other side to find him propped up on his elbow smiling down at me.

“Have you been awake this whole time?”

“Maybe, I just like when you play with my hair.” He twirled a strand of my hair around his finger and smiled wider at me. He pulled me in closer to him and wrapped me in his arms and I lay there with my head in the crook of his neck.

“We’re going to have to get up eventually,” I said not moving. As much as I knew it was true, I didn’t want to go anywhere.

“Not necessarily,” he said pulling me even closer into him, “we could just lay in bed all day. Kick back, relax. Maybe watch a couple movies. I don’t know.”

“Well, knowing Louis and Rachel, they aren’t the type of people to let us just lounge around all day.”

“Right she is, Ni-ni,” Louis said marching himself in with Rachel standing in the doorway.

“Louis, what the fuck do you want to do now? I think we’ve had some very eventful days this past week. Do we really need another?”

“Adventure is out there, my friend. And we all know it’s one of my favorite things to discover,” he said with a wink. Rachel smiled from the doorway and caught my eye.

“Come on, Lauren. We want to go to the basketball courts near the park today. I have to show you them. They remind me of the ones back home.” I thought about how Rach and I would play basketball with all the boys around the neighborhood during the summer. I missed our old friends. I wonder if they’re all doing alright. I hope so, anyway.

“Come on, Boobear, you know you want to!” she said smiling her famous mischievous smile at me. I saw Louis turn his head at the name ‘Boobear’ but he let it slide so I figured I wouldn’t say anything.

“Alright, alright, fine! C’mon, Niall.” I said pulling myself from the bed. I only got so far out of bed before I was yanked back by my arm. Niall was refusing to get up. He pulled me back in.

“You can’t give in to Louis so easily, darling.” he said smirking at Lou. He simply stuck his tongue out at Ni in response.

“Niall, I do want to go. I love basketball and I’ve never seen the courts out here. Please? Please, Niall?” I gave him my best puppy dog face – even though I wasn’t very good at them – and he threw his head back and sighed.

“That isn’t fair, Lauren,” he said shaking his head at me and I did everything I could to hold back a cackle. “Okay. I’ll go.” Everyone cheered for him and he couldn’t stop the smile from stretching his lips. Lou and Rachel dashed out of the room to get themselves ready. Niall pulled himself out of bed and walked around it. He grabbed my arms just underneath the elbows and smiled at me.

“I’m only doing this because you want to go, not because Lou does, ya know.”

“Thank you,” I said pecking his lips. He smiled at me then and pulled me in for another kiss. He wrapped his arms around my waist and I ran my hands up his arms feeling his biceps. “Ya know,” I said pulling away from his lips for a moment, “the arm you yanked on was the same one that the security guard hurt the other night.” the man was quite strong, and my arm had been sore from the pull he had on it that night.

“Shit! I didn’t mean to. I wasn’t even thinking about it. Are you alright?” I laughed at him and nodded, but he still looked worried. “Are you sure?”

“I’m fine, Ni. I promise.” He put his hand on my cheek and brushed his thumb against my skin, underneath my eye. “You’re beautiful, did you know that?” I smiled but I absentmindedly let my mouth slip into a frown. “What’s wrong?” he asked me, the same worry showing in his eyes again. I just shook my head and gave him a small smile. “Nothing, I’m fine.” He nodded his head but he still looked at me skeptically and I knew it wasn’t long until we had that conversation.

“C’mon, we better get ready now or they’re going to have a hissy fit,” I said chuckling a bit. He grabbed some spare clothes the boys had brought him from the night before and took it into my bathroom. I went into my closet then and threw on a pair of black softball shorts and a cutoff I took from Rachel’s room. I walked out of my closet and put my hair up in a messy bun. Just then, Niall exited the bathroom and smiled at me. He pressed a feathery kiss to my lips and pulled away giving me the same cheeky, goofy smile I loved.

“That’s like the third kiss in five minutes.”

“I like kissing you,” he said shrugging. He suddenly wrapped his arms around my waist tickling my sides and lifting me up. He pressed his lips all over my face making me laugh and squeal.

“Niall! Knock it off!” I said through my laughter. He set me down but still held onto my hands and kissed my nose. “You are so corny,” I said laughing.

“Only because you want me to be.” It was true. I knew I was a complete white girl saying it but I loved cliché, corny, cheesy things. I loved the sappy movies where the underdog gets the girl or whatever chick flick movie plotline it has. I loved how Niall acted like that because reality and the real world sucked and I liked staying away from it as much as possible. I liked living in a fairytale and Niall made everything feel safe and okay.

We walked out of the room to see Harry at the table eating a bowl of Captain Crunch and Louis and Rachel dancing around the kitchen.

“You guys know there isn’t any music playing, right?” Niall said smiling at the couple.

“Use your imagination, mate. It works!” Louis said not losing rhythm. Niall shrugged and held his hand out to me.

“Would you give me the pleasure of having a dance?” I laughed and took his hands and he danced poorly, running into counters and chairs, but it was fun all the same.

“Now you got it!” Louis said smiling at us. At one point, Niall tripped over the leg of a chair and tumbled onto his back, pulling me on top of him in the process. We all laughed, including Harry who had been watching us the entire time in admiration. Rachel and Louis continued to dance to their heart’s content as Niall and I joined Harry for cereal. Louis twirled Rachel around and pulled her close giving a light kiss to her forehead making her smile. Seeing her smile made me smile. Seeing me smile made Niall smile. Seeing Louis smile made Harry smile and everyone just seemed so happy. The vibe Lou and Rachel made was undeniably wonderful. He made her happy and she made him happy. I guess the rest of us were just happy our best friends were happy. It made me feel like we were all a family even though we had only known them for a few days.

“Harry, are you coming with us to the courts?” Niall asked.

“No, sorry mate. I’m going to meet up with Grimmy today. Haven’t seen the lad in a while,” he said smiling. Niall nodded and continued with his meal.

Lou and Rachel finally joined us for a bowl of cereal and Lou took another opportunity to apologize.

“I’m sorry, again, about the porn I drew on your face, Haz,” he said in a cheeky voice smiling.

I looked at the remainder of the drawing left on Harry’s face. There wasn’t much. You could barely tell what was there if you hadn’t been there the previous night. There were smudges and marks of black marker found on different areas of his forehead, but that was all.

“It really doesn’t look like there was anything there, Harry.” I said quietly. I had spoken a few words to Harry and I knew he wouldn’t hate me. It was just something I did. I was quite shy.

“Thanks, Lauren,” he said brightly and with a grin.

“Hey but, uh, call me Haz,” he whispered with a smile. I don’t think anyone heard him but it gave me a boost of confidence.

Harry left soon after breakfast, after cleaning the bowls we used because he refused to be a ‘horrible guest’, and we headed out to the courts.

When we got to the courts, we just shot around at first. Soon, Rachel and Louis started arguing at who was a better player than who and decided to test it out.

“Lauren and Rach against Niall and me,” Louis said with a smug look.

“Lou! I want to be on Lauren’s team,” he said in a whiny voice smiling at me. I walked up to him smiling and wrapped my hands around his which had a firm grip on the ball. I suddenly knocked the ball out of his hands and took it in my grasp. I gave him a smug smile and he just shook his head and laughed. “Forget it. It’s on!” he said laughing.

From the beginning of the game, Rach and I had made plenty of failed attempts of making a basket. It wasn’t our fault though. Every time I tried to take a shot Niall would wrap his arms around me and tried to pass it off as a hug; same for Louis and Rachel. At halftime, we decided it was time to ‘fight fire with fire’ as Rachel called it. We hated doing it because it wasn’t our thing to be so… girly. We would play defense and stand in front of the boys and they would put their hands up to shoot. When they did that, we’d put our hands on their chest and plant a light kiss to their lips making both of them melt. The other girl would knock the ball out of their hands and take up a layup. We hated being girly, but it worked. We did win. Only by a few points but we still won.

“It’s not fair that you guys couldn’t keep your hands off of us.” Niall said wrapping his hand around my waist as we entered the Wendy’s.

“Niall, my friend, how could you blame them? It’s not their fault we’re damn sexy!” Louis said smiling at Rach who just laughed.

“You know what? You two weren’t playing so fair either with your ‘hugs’ you gave us.” I said sticking my tongue out at Niall.

“Hey, hey, hey, those were hugs! We just did it because you’re so incredibly gorgeous,” Louis said smiling at me and giving Rachel an Eskimo kiss.

We all got a bunch of chicken nuggets and shared them along with three large fries. Ni and I shared a chocolate frosty as well as Rachel and Louis. Rachel, as she always has, dipped a fry into her frosty which caught Louis’ attention.

“What the hell are you doing?” he said looking at her like she just fucking spit on her food before eating it.

“Really Lou? This again?” Niall said laughing. I loved his laugh.

“What’s wrong?” I asked looking at Lou.

“He just doesn’t think it’s delicious when people dip their fries in anything but ketchup. And sometimes he doesn’t even like that. It has to be ‘the right kind’ of ketchup. He’s quite picky.”

Rachel laughed and did it again and Louis just rolled his eyes. “You know what? I don’t care. I still think you’re perfectly imperfect. Which makes you the ideal woman in Louis Tomlinson’s eyes,” he said winking at Rachel. She blushed and he kissed her crimson cheeks.

“Do you think it’s gross?” I asked Niall. I, like Rachel, did it all the time. I thought it was delicious.

“No, I love it. Louis is the only one that can’t stand it. The rest of the boys think it’s alright but I can’t have a fry and a shake without doing it,” he said shrugging.

“Good,” I said. I dipped one of my fries and held it out for him. He smiled and took one end of the fry in his mouth and pressed the other to my lips. I took it and he pulled me in for a kiss. It was just like in The Lady and the Tramp where they share the spaghetti noodle. Again, it was cliché. But really, I didn’t give a flying fuck. It was a path way to Niall Horan’s lips and I wasn’t going to turn it down.

—

When we went home, we were all just going to watch a movie. Rachel went to take a quick shower and Niall went out to get the movie. Lou was lounged across the couch watching a TV program I wasn’t paying attention to.

“Hey, Lou, you want a water?” I said looking back at him from the fridge.

“Sure, thanks love!” I grabbed him a water bottle and one for myself and plopped down on the couch next to him.

“Thanks,” he said again. There was a moment of silence and I figured now would be the best time.

“Lou?”

“Yeah?”

“Thank you,” I whispered. He looked at me with his brows furrowed. He muted the telle and took a little more interest in what I was saying.

“What for?”

“Rach… she uh wasn’t exactly in a good place.”

“What do you mean?” he seemed so confused. I felt like I was going to break out into tears telling him about it. Rachel hadn’t smiled before the day Louis gave her his number. She was so incredibly happy and I was so happy for it. I would have conversations with Rachel where she would tell me about how she hated herself and I did cry. It killed me. Because Rachel was a great person. She had been my role model since we were two and I would steal her clothes and movies and toys and whatever I could to just be her. She was sort of an inspiration to me. I love her.

I explained all of this to Louis while he listened intently. I hadn’t had very many conversations with him so far. But, I had to have this one. I didn’t want her to hate herself anymore. There was nothing she had to hate.

“Lauren, if anything, she saved me. I felt like good for nothing shit before she came along. And I felt like that for a long time. I was scared of myself. But, the minute she walked through that door and had the fucking nerve to sass me, knowing who I was, she made me smile. It was great. I promise you, she’ll be safe with me. she’s helped me so much in these past few days and I don’t see myself letting this one slip anytime soon, okay?” he was speaking in such a soft tone.

“Okay,” I whispered. He smiled at me and wrapped his arms wound me, pulling me into a long hug.

“You be good to my Nialler, alright?” he joked. I laughed and nodded and he gave me a quick hug again.

"So can i ask something?" he asked me curiously.

"Of course."

"Why did Rachel call you ‘Boobear?" I laughed in his face and instantly felt awful about it but I guess I didn’t care. 

"You boys have quite the influence on us."

"That’s probably a bad thing," he said chuckling. I laughed along and nodded. "Probably."

A few minutes later, Rachel was lying across the couch with her head tucked into Louis’ neck. I sat on Niall’s lap in the chair – even though I didn’t want to at all; I didn’t feel comfortable sitting on people’s laps – and we watched the movie. We were so incredibly comfortable with everyone. I felt closer to Louis which was nice. It was like a family. I know I have already said that but I didn’t care. It was a great family at that.


	7. Chapter 7

Louis’ POV

“This movie is sappy,” I said out of total boredom.

“It isn’t that bad,” Rachel said pushing her head into the crook of my neck.

“C’mon, even prince charming and his new beau over there are playing sleeping beauty,” I said gesturing to Lauren and Niall who were fast asleep on the chair, wrapped in each other’s arms. I swear Niall was one of the cheekiest people I have ever met. Lauren is quite cliché too. But, if that’s how they want to be then I have no right to judge them. In fact, I think the couple is quite adorable. Rachel laughed at what I said and I felt my heart flutter out of my chest. I loved her laugh. I loved the crinkles by her eyes when she smiles. Yeah, I used a song lyric. Sue me. I thought about what Lauren had told me today. I thought about what she said about Rachel hating herself. How come she didn’t tell me that? Or was I supposed to know that? Am I a bad boyfriend? Wait, calm down Lou. You’re fine.

“Rachel”

“Hmm”

“You’re beautiful, did you know that?” I said with a cheeky grin. She looked up at me and gave me a half smile. It wasn’t anywhere near genuine. Why hadn’t I noticed this before? I’m a dick.

“Are you enjoying this movie?” she asked me. I sensed the worry in her voice like she was boring me.

“It doesn’t matter, love. As long as you’re having a nice time, so am I.”

“Well, actually, this movie is so cliché. I like the sappy things but I’ve seen this movie way over a million times. It is Lauren’s favorite. Simply because of how sappy it is.”

“Yeah, well I wouldn’t expect anything less from High School Musical 3,” I said chuckling. She laughed too and, god, that laugh makes my heart melt. It’s was one of the many things I lo – I mean like – about her. Not love; like. I planted a kiss to her hairline and pulled her in closer.

“It’s a classic,” she said giggling.

“Oh please.”

“It was a big part of our childhood. It reminds me of when we would sit with Lauren’s sisters and have one of those nice moments with them.”

“Then I’ll watch it with you.”

“Nah, I don’t want to watch it. I might get homesick and leave you,” she said poking at my sides.

I gave her my best puppy dog face, lips pursed and eyes wide, and she laughed at me. She pressed her lips to mine and they instantly stretched out to form a huge grin. She turned herself around and flipped off the telle and pulled herself from my lap.

“Wait, come sit with me a bit, darling,” I said stretching my arms out like a toddler.

“No, I want to do something,” she whined.

“What could you possibly want to do?” I asked her scoffing, “We already went to the basketball courts. And to the amusement park and out to a fancy dinner and to a hotel. We also went to the cinema. We also had a nice evening with Modest followed by me sneaking in to see you. Like a forbidden love story. I’m quite the romantic sometimes malady.” She rolled her eyes at me but I continued. “Then, I had to wake you from the dream that brought you to tears. And I don’t think that was easy for either of us. Then, we had a night of booze and liquor and some fantastic artwork done by Yours Truly. This is all in the course of six days, babe. The Tommo needs to chill out a bit.”

“Please, Louis?” she gave me a puppy dog look which was waaayyy cuter than mine.

“Fine, fine, let’s go get some pizza.” By now, it was around six and I for one was starving. We had shared only about 12 nuggets so each of us only had three. I grabbed the keys to the car and swung them around my finger and headed towards the door.

“I’m not hungry.”

“Are you sure? I mean you only had two and half nuggets because I ate half of one.”

“Yeah, I’m sure.” I gave her a skeptical look but she just nodded. I knew she was hungry during the movie because I kept hearing her stomach growl. Was it because of what Lauren had told me? I’m not going to let her do that if that’s what it’s about. I figured I should test her one more time. I wrapped my arms around her waist and pulled her lips to mine. Her hands ran up my chest and I gripped her tighter. I pulled away and she smiled.

“And that was for…?”

“Do I need a reason? Beside the fact that you’re gorgeous? Because I think that’s the only reason I did.” I gave her another cheeky smile. She smiled a bit too but it had the same amount of genuine as the other did. I saw from the corner of my eye Niall and Lauren shift in the chair less than ten feet away and I figured I should probably talk to Rachel now.

“Come with me,” I said smiling at her. She took my hand and I entwined our fingers together and led her down the hallway to her room. I set her down on the bed and took a seat next to her, wrapping my arm around her waist and smiling softly at her.

“Rachel, what’s wrong? I know you’re hungry because you’re stomach has been growling and you don’t seem very happy when I tell you just how stunning you are.”

She let her eyes fall to the ground to avoid eye contact with me and I assumed I was right about what I had been thinking. I curled my index finger and lifted her chin so she would look at me. Her eyes were wide and she looked as if she was trying not to cry.

“Talk to me, love. Please?” She was silent again for a moment.

“I’m fine, Louis.”

“Don’t give me that bullshit. I see how you act when I call you beautiful or gorgeous. I can tell you don’t believe me,” I said a little too harshly so I took her hands in mine and just stared at them for a while. “Do you hate yourself?” she nodded and a tear rolled down her cheek. I kissed it to stop the tear in its tracks and pulled her in for a hug.

“Why? How could someone hate such a beautiful lady like you?”

“You keep saying I’m beautiful but it’s all lies, Louis. My hair is always frizzy and I dress like a slob and these damn freckles and pale skin I hate and these glasses make me look like a freak. Plus,” she paused. She had been yelling for a bit and she brought her voice down to a whisper, “Plus, I’m fat.”

“No, stop it, you are not.”

“Lou, look at me damn it!” she screamed jumping up from the bed. She started pacing back and forth in front of me so I stayed quiet and listened, “I don’t have a thigh gap. You can’t see my hip bones or collar bones. My face is chubby and round. My legs and stomach are fucking huge. I’m not beautiful or gorgeous. I’m ugly. I’m so fucking ugly.” She was in tears now and her eyes were wet and face red with tear stains on her cheek and it was the most heart breaking sight I’ve ever seen.

I jumped from the bed and took her face in between my hands and kissed her. I kissed her lips and her cheeks. I kissed all of the tears. I kissed her nose. I kissed her forehead and her hair. I kissed her jaw and her neck. I kissed her arms and her hands. I kissed her wrists and her elbows. I kissed her shoulders and her back. I wrapped my arms around her waist and kissed her lips again. I guided her towards the bed. I laid her down and kissed her stomach. I kissed her thighs and her legs. I kissed her feet and her knees. I slowly guided my way up her body back to her face. She was lying against the bed with her hands pushed against her face. I kissed the back of her hands and her eyes peeked through the gap in her fingers and I could see new tears forming. I kissed her eyelids and then her sweet lips for the third time.

“Do you know why I did that?” I asked her sitting her up and holding her in my arms. She shook her head no and sniffled again.

“I kissed the part of your body that are my favorites. And they are all my favorites. And you know why?” she shook her head no with another sniffle. I half smiled at her and she just buried her head into the crook of my neck. I ran my hand up and down her back for a while before I answered her.

“Every part of your body is my favorite because you are my favorite, Rach. I love your eyes. And your lips. I love your cheeks and your freckles. I love your smile and your hair and your hands. I love your arms and your elbows and your wrists. I love your stomach and your thighs and your knees. I love your legs and your feet and your toes. I love your fingers. I love your laugh. I love it when you bury your head into my neck. I love it when you hold my hand. I love how you sing just as loud as the radio. I love it when I catch you glancing at me sometimes. I love your kisses. I love everything about you.” I paused a moment because I was afraid of scaring her off. But I know she deserves to know. “Rachel, I love you.” Her eyes widened and she looked at me in total astonishment. She looked scared. God damn it, Lou!

“Um, okay, I’m not telling you it just to hear you say it back, even though uh, you know I wouldn’t mind – uh – I wouldn’t mind hearing it back, but – um – I’m telling you that I – uh, I…love…you – because I think you should know. I don’t want you to say it back just because you think you should – ya know, just because I said it. I just want you to know how beautiful I think you are and wonderful and perfectly imperfect. Wait, I already said that. Damn. Okay, I really don’t want to scare you off, ya know, because we just met six days ago. And I know a lot of people would be like ‘woah, it is way too soon for that’ but I – I don’t know. Just please don’t break up with me because I said it. If you really want me to, I’ll take it back. Yeah, that’s it. I didn’t mean it, it was just impulse. Wait, no, that sounds stupid and a little mean. I do love you. But, only if you want me to. I’m sorry I’m rambling. I’m just sorry.” I said that within two breaths. She took my jaw in her hand and kissed me so softly and slowly. When she pulled away, I was really scared of what she was going to say, but she just smiled. “Louis, shut up,” she said laughing a bit. I smiled at her because of her laugh but I was still scared especially now because she told me to shut up.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered.

“It is okay, Louis. You have no reason to be sorry. I love you too.”

What? Did she just say she loves me? Too?

“Y – You do?”

“Of course, I do,” she said giggling and ruffling my hair a bit.

“I’ve loved you since those damn video diaries you and the rest of those bloody idiots made. I thought you knew that.”

“You loved me because I was Louis Tomlinson of One Direction. Not because I was your boyfriend.”

“Louis, I’ve loved you as Louis Tomlinson the person. Not Louis Tomlinson the pop star. I know you and I wouldn’t dream of just loving you for the fame or the publicity or the fortune. I love you because you’re sassy and sweet and funny and caring. You’ve been my ideal boyfriend since I was in my second year of secondary school. As pathetic and sad that sounds, it’s true. I love you Louis William Tomlinson.”

“And I love you, Rachel Rose Jensen.” I pressed a kiss to her lips and she gladly kissed back. She slipped her tongue between my lips and our tongues danced together for a bit. She pulled me on top of her as she laid herself back on the bed. I towered over her, our hands on either side of her body, both pairs entwined, with her hands pressed against the bed. She untangled her hands and ran hers down my back. She gripped the hem of the shirt and pulled it up. I stopped her after it past my belly button by grabbing her hands in mine.

“Not this time, monkey,” I said gasping in between kisses. She stopped and gave me that same adorable puppy dog look with her lips pursed and eyes wide and god damn. I kissed her lips into a smile and I smiled back.

“Well, why not?” she whined.

“You’re always so antsy,” I said tapping her nose, “and because Lauren and Niall have been asleep for a good hour and a half and they’ll be up any minute.” She leaned up and wrapped her arms around my neck and kissed my lips lightly, maybe even a little seductively. I wanted to, so bad, but it had to be special. She said she loved me and I said I loved her so we’re halfway there. Unless, she just said it to make me feel better.

“Rachel,”

“Hmm”

“Are you sure you love me really?” I don’t see how anyone could. I’m quite the shithead sometimes.

“Positive,” she said and nodded. I kissed her lips again when we heard a light knock on the door.

“Hey, Lou?”

“What Niall?” I said a little too harshly. The poor lad didn’t do anything wrong but couldn’t he see I was in the middle of something?

“Sorry, man, I was just wondering if you and Rachel wanted to grab something to eat with Lauren and me,” he said feeling a bit awkward now that I yelled at him.

“How about pizza?” Rachel piped up from underneath me. I smiled at her and she smiled at me. I kissed her lips and she giggled. Niall looked at us confused and I knew he didn’t understand what we were talking about. Poor Nialler always seemed so lost. We both got up off the bed and Niall let her through and I trailed behind her. I smiled at Niall and patted his back. I wrapped my arm around his shoulder and walked with him down the hall.

“I did it, man.”

“Did what?” like I said, always lost.

“I told her I loved her.” He beamed at me then and patted my back.

“And she said she loves me,” I said probably a little more excited than I should have. He chuckled a bit and congratulated me. I saw Lauren and Rachel smiling at each other and I knew Rachel must have told her. I pulled Rachel into a hug and I saw her give a look to Rachel that looked like she was saying ‘tell me later’ and I smiled a bit. Niall hugged Rachel and congratulated her and Lauren did the same to me. When Lauren hugged me, she whispered to me.

“Do you really mean it?” I nodded a yes and she hugged me tighter.

“Thank you,” she whispered again.

“Thank you for telling me,” I whispered back. We let go of the embrace and I took Rachel’s hand and Lauren took Niall’s. I watched the two idiots in front of us flirt and smile and kiss each other. I’m glad Niall found a girl he likes. She’s a pretty cool girl. She’s a lot like Rachel. Rachel: the woman I love. the woman that loves me back. I had everything I needed now.


	8. Chapter 8

**Niall’s POV**

“Lou, why did you have to go and be a dumbass?” I asked him once we got home after pizza.

“Sorry? What exactly did I do?”

“You had to go and be ‘sappy Louis’ and tell Rachel how much you love her,” I said making gag noises. Louis chuckled at me and I was ready to chuck a pillow at him.

“Seriously, Lou, I’m not ready to say it and I don’t want to hurt Lauren. I really, really like her. But now, you had to go and be the best boyfriend in the world and say ‘I love you’ only six damn days into the fucking relationship. Now, Lauren will be expecting me to say it any day now and then what do I do? Huh? It’s going to kill her because I guarantee you that if Rachel loved you already, that Lauren definitely loves me.”

“Oh calm down, Nialler,” Louis said through a few laughs, “Lauren isn’t like that. At least, that’s not how I gathered her to be. Relax, mate, you’ll be fine. Just don’t say anything you don’t mean because that will do more damage than anything else.” He patted my back. I sighed a bit and nodded. “Thanks, man.”

“Anytime, my friend. Lauren is a great girl. She won’t do anything stupid and irrational as long as you don’t. Now, get out. I am expecting a video call with My Rach. Go on, then! Shoo! Scadatle!” he said pushing me out his door. I laughed and he slammed the door behind me.

“Niall!” Liam called from downstairs.

 I made my way downstairs and stared at him lounged across the couch in a red tee and sweatpants.

“Yes?”

“You just got a text.” I nodded and padded across the living room to my phone where it had been charging on the coffee table.

“Hey!” Liam said annoyed when I came between his vision of the telle.

“Liam, you’ve seen Toy Story many, many times. Get over it!” he huffed out a sigh as I reached my phone and clicked the home button to see Lauren’s name lighting up. Shit.

_From Lauren: Are you okay?_

_To Lauren: What do you mean?_

_From Lauren: You seemed very antsy today at the pizza place._

Say something clever here, Niall.

_To Lauren: I’m just always nervous around you ;)_

_From Lauren: Well how cute are you :P_

_To Lauren: The cutest_

_From Lauren: Yeah? I think so too :)_

_To Lauren: Actually, I think you are the cutest_

_From Lauren: Well, shucks_

Damn, she is cute. And she hasn’t even hinted to anything about that “L” word. It makes me so nervous I can’t even say it.

_To Lauren: Do you want to come over? I miss you._

_From Lauren: I just saw you literally ten minutes ago Niall_

_To Lauren: I never get tired of that pretty face_

_From Lauren: I’m on my way_

_To Lauren: Might as well stay over :)_

Yes! I really did miss her. She’s never stayed over at our flat. It’s always been hers. She only lived about ten minutes away and the place was literally a pigsty. I started picking up the empty cans and water bottles and whatever shit I found around the living room.

“What are you doing?” Liam asked not taking his eyes off of the telle.

“Lauren’s on her way,” I said frantically picking up a bunch of Xbox controllers.

“So you’re cleaning?” he sounded so shocked.

“Yeah, this place is shit and she doesn’t need to see it like this.”

“Wow, I’ve never seen anything to drive my Nialler to clean.” He said patting my back.

“Shut up, Liam.”

“So what is she like? I only met her once and you kind of pulled her out of our sight.” I smiled as I thought about our first day together. She was so shy and intimidated it was so cute.

I simply ignored him until I was done cleaning and she would be here any minute.

“Liam, do you mind uh,” I said pointing upstairs.

“What? Seriously? You’re making me move so you could have your little girlfriend over?”

“Liam, please,” I begged.

“I want to meet her.”

“What are you my mom?”

“Close enough.” And with that, the doorbell rang.

“I’m not leaving until I meet her, Niall James Horan.” I huffed as I opened the door.

“There, you saw me. Satisfied?” she said smiling.

“Not yet,” I chuckled. I planted a kiss to her lips and she smiled into the kiss.

“There, much better now,” I said cheekily. She laughed and I took her hand and led her inside.

When she saw Liam I felt her hand tense undermine so I rubbed soothing circles against her knuckles. Why was she scared of Liam? He’s said plenty of stupid things in his life and she knows it. Why is she always scared?

“Hi, Lauren! Nice to see you again,” he said with a welcoming smile, wrapping his arms around her. She didn’t budge or hug him back. She just stood there like a deer in headlights.

“Hi,” she whispered. He pulled away and looked at her with a puzzling look.

“Are you okay? What did I do?” Liam had that sad look on his face I hated.

“No, you’re fine,” she whispered again. He nodded still with a puzzled look and looked at me.

“I’ll just be heading upstairs then.” He dashed up the stairs leaving me and Lauren in silence.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered after a few minutes.

“Love, don’t apologize,” I said wrapping my arms around her shoulders and kissing her hair.

“Can I ask you something, Lauren?”

“Anything”

“Why are you always so scared? I get that you’re shy and quiet, but you don’t need to be afraid of the boys. Liam especially.” She looked to the floor, losing eye contact with me, and was silent for a while. I took her hand and led her towards the other side of the living room. We lounged out on the floor, with our backs against the couch. She never let go of my hand and she looked like she was searching for words to say.

“I don’t know how to explain it, Ni. I am just scared of people. I’m scared of talking to them.”

“Try to explain?” I begged. I hated her like that. She looked so distressed, like a lost child in an amusement park.

“I don’t like when people judge me,” she said after a while, “and I’m always afraid of opening up my mouth because I know me and I’m not exactly an ‘accepted member of society’. I’m too weird or dorky for most people. I don’t really fit in anywhere. I don’t have good music taste. Rachel’s taught me a bit but not enough. I’m not a gamer so I don’t know much about Call of Duty or Halo or even Pokémon. I know a bit about it but again, not enough. I’m not the smartest. I’m not saying I’m dumb but I’ve never gotten straight A’s. I can’t sing or dance. I can’t play a musical instrument. I can’t really do anything. And for some people, when all else fails, they have beautiful bodies or faces. I, however, don’t.”

“Stop it. Lauren, stop it right now.”

“I’m sorry, Niall. I’m telling you the truth.”

“What you’re telling me is bullshit! It’s complete bullshit Lauren!” I shouldn’t have screamed. I felt awful about it right away because now she gave me that same look she gave everyone else besides Rachel and Lou. She was scared.

“I’m sorry,” I said instantly wrapping my arms around her, “I didn’t mean to scare you. It’s okay. Sh, it’s okay.” She was crying into my chest and I felt each tear stain my shirt. I petted her hair until she calmed down.

“Listen to me, darling. You don’t need to be scared. You’re wonderful. People just don’t take the time to see it. You are smart. But, just because you’re smart, doesn’t mean you have to be the next Albert Einstein. I don’t care if you can’t dance. I can’t either. Have you seen me? I look ridiculous!” that made her chuckle just a little when she was wiping her tears away and it made my heart melt. It was so beautifully tragic.

“Anyway, I don’t care if you can’t dance. And Rachel told me you can sing a bit. I just haven’t had the chance to hear your lovely voice. If you are not into gaming, who gives a shit? Because I certainly don’t. And lastly, you are beautiful, Lauren. I know you think you’re fat. I can tell by the way you act when it’s either sitting on my lap or eating another slice of pizza. But you aren’t. Really. Sure, you have your quirks and flaws, but that is what’s so great about you. You’re not walking around like those twig models that look like they’re dying. You know what else makes you great? You have the most darling green eyes and soft brown curly hair. You’re cheeks are plump and rosy. You’re nose scrunches up when you laugh or yawn or sneeze. You’re funny and sarcastic and always have something hilarious to say. When you laugh, I can’t help but laugh too. You’re sweet and caring and just as sappy and silly as I am. You don’t mind me being a bit overprotective and you don’t mind when I need space. Although, I haven’t asked for much of that lately. You’re my favorite person, Lauren. And I-”

_Love you? Was I just about to say I loved her? It felt like it would fit perfectly. I think I do love her. I love you. Say it, Horan!_

“And I think you’re perfect.”  _Why didn’t I say it damn it!_

“I think you’re the kind of perfect that you can never find. Not the model perfect, though. You’re the ‘Lauren’ kind of perfect. And that is my favorite kind of perfect.” She slammed her lips to mine and wrapped her hands around my neck, pulling at the short hairs. I squeezed my eyes shut, taking in every second of her kiss because for some reason, I felt like this was the last one, and I really didn’t want it to be. I held her waist and pressed it to my body, leaving no room between us.

“Niall,” she said in between kisses.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing, but there is one last thing I should tell you.”

“I’m all ears, baby.”

“Look, so before I left to come over, I had a chat with Louis.” I didn’t like where this was going but I nodded anyway.

“And he told me what you said about him telling Rachel he loves her.” Shit! I’m going to kill him!

“Oh.”

“Niall, I don’t want you to worry about it. All types of relationships are different. Some go at a quicker pace than others and I’m perfectly fine with that. I don’t care if you don’t love me because we only met six days ago. I’m not expecting a marriage proposal next week either.” I laughed a bit. I told her she was always funny.

“My point is, I’d rather you wait to say it when you mean it rather than have you say it now and then not mean it. I just don’t want you to worry about it, Niall.”

_Now’s your chance, Niall. Say it!_

“But, I think I do,” I stuttered out.

“Y-you think you love me?”

“Yeah, in fact, I do. I do love you. And I promise I’m not saying it to not hurt you I do love you.”

“I love you, too.” she said through a smile. I pulled her to her feet and picked her up swinging her in the air making her laugh. She didn’t even seem worried about the fact that I was lifting her up. It made me feel so much better. I set her down and pulled her in for a slow, sweet, and long kiss. But, of course, that kiss was interrupted by the sound of cheers coming from upstairs. We both looked at each other, laughing, and dashed our way upstairs to Louis’ room. we opened the door only to have both Louis and Rachel fall from the door coming out from underneath them.

“Rachel?” Lauren said with shock.

“Well, I didn’t want to interrupt your date so I went through the window.” She said pointing at Lou’s half opened window making me laugh.

“Tommo, I told you to keep quiet ya dipshit!” she shouted hitting his shoulder.

“Sorry, baby,” he said pressing his lips to hers, both of them still on the floor.

“Congratulations, guys!” Louis shouted hoisting himself and then Rachel up.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m still a bit upset with you, Lou.”

“Oh come on, now, Nialler,” he said dipping my head into a head lock and ruffling my hair, “you know you love me!”

“Fine, whatever, since we’re all here now, why don’t we watch a movie?” everyone agreed and we ended up watching  _Finding Nemo_  in the living room. at the end of the movie, Lauren was asleep with her head on Louis’ shoulder and his head on top of hers. I liked the bond they were forming. It’s nice to have your best mate be best mates with your girlfriend. Rachel, however was still awake on the other side of Louis.

“Do you want more popcorn?” I whispered to her. She nodded a yes and I went to the kitchen to make more. When I came back, she was perched on the floor looking at her laptop. I handed her the bowl of popcorn and sat down next to her, peering at her screen.

“Whatdya looking at?”

“Just some old photos from when Lauren and I were little. I haven’t talked to the family in a long time. I was just feeling a bit homesick.” She smiled a bit. I watched with her through the slide show of two brown haired girls grow through pictures. There were pictures at carnivals and at parties. Some were from Halloween and others from Easter or Christmas. There was a lot.

“Wow, you guys have really been through it all, haven’t ya?”

“Yeah,” she laughed, “We haven’t really left each other’s sides since she came home from the hospital.”

“See this one? Here, we were on our favorite ride as a kid. The Frogger. We rode it every year until we weren’t allowed to anymore.” We both laughed.

She had a story for each picture. It was so interesting. It was like hearing random chapters from a book that all fit together in the end to create them.

“Niall, you can’t hurt her. You heard what she told you. How do you think she’ll feel if she was rejected by you?”

“I wouldn’t dream of it.”

“That’s why I hope you were serious about what you said.”

“I was.”

“Promise?”

“Promise.”

“Good.” She hugged me then and I thought it was wonderful how they both protected each other like that. We both looked back at Louis and Lauren who were still fast asleep next to each other.

“Ya know, Rachel, I think this is the start of a new family.”

“The start of something new,” she said with a smile like it was some sort of joke. I shrugged and pulled a blanket out for her.

“Thanks, but I think I’m just going to sleep in Louis’ bed.”

“Should we wake them?”

“Eh, I’ll get him eventually. You do what you want.”

“Okay,” I wrapped my arms around Rachel and hugged her tight.

“Thanks Rachel,” I whispered. I didn’t know what I was thanking her for but I knew I needed to.

“Anytime,” she whispered back. I planted a small friendly kiss to her forehead and she smiled at me. She trudged up the stairs and I tapped Lauren.

“C’mon, love,” I whispered. She got up and followed me, stumbling a bit, until we reached my room. Once we were tucked under the covers, I pulled her back to my chest and wrapped my arm around her middle.

“I really do love you, Lauren.”

“I love you too,” she yawned. I listened to her breathing as she was quickly back into her dreams and I soon drifted off thinking about what Rachel had said: the start of something new.


	9. Chapter 9

Rachel’s POV

I woke up and instantly had a smile on my face. It had been a month now since I met Louis. We were celebrating it by doing something he planned. I didn’t know what it was. It was a surprise. And that scared me, knowing the things Louis Tomlinson can concoct in his head. He said he had been planning it for a while and he was excited to show me. I felt Louis shift behind me and I turned around and smiled up at him. He returned the same goofy smile he gives me every morning and planted a kiss to my lips.

“Good morning, sunshine.”

“Morning,” I said in a raspy voice.

“Happy Anniversary,” he said poking at my nose making me giggle. He was so excited about it because the goofy smile he had grew even bigger I thought his jaw would crack.

I lifted my head and placed my hand on his jaw giving him a slow kiss.

“Happy Anniversary,” I whispered into his lips.

“I never get tired of waking up next to you,” he whispered back. I pressed my lips to his again and he chuckled into our kiss.

“Always wanting a kiss from the Tommo,” he said still laughing.

“What can I say? You’re kind of hot,” I shrugged. He laughed a bit louder and kissed me one more time. When he pulled away, he had a disappointed look on his face.

“I have to go. We have interviews today,” he paused a moment but didn’t even give me time to answer.

“I’m really sorry. I tried asking Paul to get us out of this one and he said he tried but these people would be really good for advertising about the new album and they can only see us today. But I absolutely promise I will be back in time for our date.” he rambled on and on and said sorry about ten times before I just kissed his forehead.

“Louis, it’s perfectly fine. I understand completely.”

“You do?”

“Of course,” I chuckled out, “Now, hurry along then. We don’t need Paul beating your ass for being late again.” He kissed me again and hopped off the bed.

“I love you!” he shouted down the hall.

“Yeah, yeah, whatever,” I yelled back. His head peeked into the doorframe and I saw guilt swimming in his crystal blue eyes.

“I was only kidding, Lou. I love you too.” I blew a kiss to him and he caught it and placed it on his heart. And with that, he was down the hall with a quick hello to Lauren and was gone. Once I heard the front door to our flat shut, I jumped out of the bed and ran into the kitchen where Lauren was eating a bowl of cereal.

“We need to go shopping,” I said urgently.

“Ugh! I hate shopping!” she shouted back at me. She is so fucking difficult sometimes.

“I do too, but I need to get something to wear for tonight. Lou said it was something big and that I should dress nicely.”

She rolled her eyes and threw her head back. Lauren didn’t mind a lot of things but she absolutely hated shopping.

“Come on, please? You know I hate dressing up so I have  _nothing_  in my closet.”

“You can wear that dress you borrowed from me when you went on your first date with Louis.”

“No, I can’t wear that. I’ve already worn that dress on a date with him.” I sounded like such a teenage girl but I couldn’t help it. It was some sort of weird instinct that I had. I don’t know.

“Fine, fine,” she said after a few minutes. She trudged off to her room and she threw on some sweatpants and a t-shirt (it was mine but I wasn’t going to bug her about it) and had her hair in a messy bun.

-

“What about this one?” I say pulling out a full length blue dress.

“Nah, that’s too dress-like.”

“Are you kidding me?” I said annoyed. She shrugged and went back to flipping through the racks.

“Rachel Jensen, I have found your dress,” she announced to me so proud. She held up a knee length dress with a gold, shimmery top and a black soft skirt starting from just above the waist. I smiled brightly at her.

“Good girl, you found it!” I said patting her head and she swatted my hand away. We found some gold heels to go with it and we were headed home. (Rachel’s outfit: <http://www.polyvore.com/smut_dress/set?id=78888721>)

When we got home, I got in the shower and then Lauren helped me with my hair. She straightened it while I did my makeup.

“I hate contacts,” I muttered trying not to lose the left one.

“This dress brings out your eyes and that won’t happen unless you wear contacts.” I was agitated but I eventually got them in and she was right, I looked so much better.

After everything was through, I turned around in circles checking myself in the full length body mirror on the back of my door.

“Shit!” I said.

“What’s wrong?” I pointed to my neck.

“I don’t have a necklace to wear.” She thought for a minute and then a smile etched its way onto her face and she dashed out of the room with a quick ‘be right back’. When she returned, she turned me in the direction of the mirror and stood behind me. She placed her moon necklace around my neck and smiled over my shoulder. “For luck,” she whispered. Her moon necklace was her favorite and she never let anyone else wear it. The only other person that she allowed to wear it was our goddaughter Kaylee, for her First Communion. I remember the bright eyed little girl making her way to the pastor very ungracefully, tripping over her ‘mini wedding dress’ as she called it.

“Are you sure?”

“Positive,” she nodded. I smiled and wrapped my arms around her. My little cousin was definitely a pain in the ass but I could never stay mad at her for everything. She was good sometimes and that’s why I loved her.

The doorbell rang then and I felt my entire body go cold.

“Put your heels on, I’ll go let him in,” Lauren said rushing out the door. as I strapped on my heels, I felt myself getting more and more nervous. I’ve never felt this nervous around Louis so I don’t know why this was any different.

I made my way down the hallway as gracefully as I could manage in these heels to see Louis standing there. He had the same classy suit on he wore on our first date but I really could care less.

“Oh, I am so sorry; I must have the wrong flat. Because, knowing my girlfriend, she would be wearing a pair of gray baggy sweatpants and a band t shirt on our date.” He said smiling. I stuck my tongue out and he laughed. He smiled at me and wrapped his arms around my waist, using his thumbs to rub circles on the small of my back.

“You look stunning,” he whispered in his perfect accent. I smiled up at him and he leaned in for a kiss but abruptly stopped. He quietly chuckled and slowly turned his head to look towards Lauren, who was standing there watching us with a big smile on her face. Lou cleared his throat and gave her a look.

“Oh, fuck, okay. Have a good night guys,” she said marching off into her bedroom. We both laughed when she was gone and I finally got that kiss I had been waiting for.

“Hi,” he whispered.

“Hi.”

“You look stunning,” he said again.

“You already said.”

“Well, it deserved to be said more than once.”

“Well, if you insist.”

“Always so damn cute,” he laughed poking my nose.

“Come on, then. We don’t want to be late for our own date.” He took my hand and we walked out the door.

We drove for a bit before he stopped the car in a very random spot. There weren’t any restaurants around, none that you would dress this nice for anyway.

“Where are we?”

“We have to walk a bit, love.” We walked down the sidewalk for a while talking about whatever popped into our heads. Then, we were there and I couldn’t believe what was happening. Paul was standing in front of us in a suit with a big smile.

“Mr. Tomlinson, Ms. Jensen, your carriage awaits you,” he said as he took a step to the side to reveal one of the capsules to the London Eye. It was dark out and no one else was in sight of the huge tourist attraction which I found quite odd.

“How did you do this?” I asked Louis. He locked his elbow with mine and smiled.

“I’m Louis fucking Tomlinson, I can get whatever I want,” he said smirking.

“Watch it, Lou,” Paul said from behind us. I smiled at him.

Once inside the capsule, Louis shut the door and gave a thumbs-up to Paul who started up the oversized Ferris Wheel.

“You really rented out the London Eye for two people?”

“Honestly, Rachel, I would rent out the world for you if I had to.” Inside the capsule, he had a blanket laid on the floor with a basket and candles. He had a radio in the corner as well. He took a seat next to me on the blanket and started unpacking our picnic.

“I thought about a picnic in the park, but that seemed a bit too cliché,” he said spreading the peanut butter onto the slice of bread.

“And this isn’t?” I asked him laughing.

“Hell no, baby! This is way over the top stuff! And you know how I always like to be the best.” He smirked at me but then I saw him drop his smile.

“D-do you not like it? Because we can do someth-” I smashed my lips to his because I couldn’t resist.

“Would you quit worrying? It’s absolutely perfect. I love it, Louis.”

“I love you.”

“I love you too.” he kissed me again and handed me the peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

“You know me so well,” I said smiling at him. He shrugged and made his sandwich and we ate together. We had a beautiful view. It was night so all of the city lights were on and you could literally see everything. It was prefect. Just like him.

We again talked about whatever came to our minds because that’s how all of our conversations go. I guess we do that because we never want to run out of things to say. and I guess we do that because we never want to stop talking to each other. And I guess we do that because we love each other.

“I’m going back to Uni soon,” I said at one point.

“Lauren’s first year, right?”

“Correct.”

“Wow, what’s poor Niall going to spend all his time doing then?” I laughed then thinking about how they’re probably talking to each other right now.

“How long ‘til you start?”

“We start in four weeks.”

“Does that mean I only have four weeks left before I get answers like ‘I can’t I have homework’ or ‘I can’t I have to study’?” he seemed genuinely upset.

“I’ll always make time for you, Lou. Besides, Lauren’s a smart girl. I might just make her do my homework so I can do other things.”

“Like me?” he asked with a smug smile. I laughed and rolled my eyes.

We finished our meal and he packed away the stuff and we both pulled the blanket over us to keep warm. I snuggled into his body and he ran his fingers through my hair.

“You want to listen to some music?” he asked me after a few moments of silence. I nodded and he pulled a small remote from his pocket and flipped on the radio.  _Wonderful Tonight_ by Eric Clapton was playing and he smiled at me goofily.

“What?” I asked him holding back a laugh.

“This song reminds me of you.”

“You’re very corny.”

“I think I have just the right amount of corn in my talk,” he said winking at me and I laughed.

 _It’s late in the evening; she’s wondering what clothes to wear._  
She puts on her make-up and brushes her long blonde hair.  
And then she asks me, “Do I look all right?”  
And I say, “Yes, you look wonderful tonight.”

He sang the lyrics into the air and I smiled as I listened to his heartbeat.  He looked down at me and smiled and planted a long kiss to the lips. At first it was slow, but the heat built up and before I knew it, I was underneath him with his tongue between my lips.

I hesitantly reached for the hem of his shirt but this time, when I pulled it up he didn’t stop me. He threw his shirt over his head and I ran my hands up his toned body to his chest. I sat up to take off my own shirt but then he put his hands over mine.

“We don’t have to do this,” he whispered, “I’ll wait as long as you need to. I want it to be absolutely perfect.” I kissed him again and ran my thumb over his knuckles.

“It is perfect. I’m ready, Lou.”

“Are you sure?”

“Positive.” He searched my eyes for any sign of doubt but of course he didn’t find a trace so he let go of my hands and I lifted my shirt off. He then laid me back down and planted kisses to my lips, jaw, neck, and collar bone. He nibbled at my skin leaving little love bites here and there. He then separated and shimmied out of his pants and I did the same. He was quick to return his lips to me and ran his hands around my back until he reached the clasp to my bra. He pulled away and looked at me, gripping the clasp. I nodded slowly and he undid and returned to kissing me. He ran kisses all down my chest to my stomach, kissing every inch of skin. I gripped the hem of his boxers and he looked at me, again, searching for a sign of doubt.

“I’m ready, Louis,” I whispered. He nodded and slowly pulled his boxers off to reveal his hard member. He slipped my underwear down my legs and through them to the side.

“You are so incredibly beautiful, Rachel,” he whispered while nibbling on my ear.

“I love you,” he whispered.

“I love you, too, Lou.”

“Are you ready?” I nodded. He reached into the basket and pulled out a condom and slipped it on carefully before positioning himself at my entrance. He slowly slipped himself in and I felt pleasure wash over me. He gave me a minute to adjust to his massive dick before I nodded and he slowly began to thrust his hips into me. His pace quickened with every thrust and the faster he went the better it felt.

“Shit, Louis,” I muttered. Our moans filled the small room as he nibbled on my ear and continuously thrusted, harder, faster, and deeper with each time.

“I love you so much, Rachel.” He kept repeating over and over in my ear.

“Are you close?” he asked me eventually. We had been at it for I don’t know how long but I felt a knot in my stomach and I knew I was very close. I couldn’t find the words to respond so I just nodded and he kissed my ear.

“Me too,” he grunted. I felt him getting sloppier and he began kissing and biting my neck, pushing me further over the edge. “Cum for me, Rach,” he grunted and that was all I need before I fell over the cliff and into the depths of my high. He followed behind moments later and slowly slipped himself out. He crashed onto the floor next to me and pulled me into his chest. We both panting for air and the room smelt of sex and sweat and it was all so great.

“I love you, Rachel. I really, really love you.”

“I really, really love you too Louis.” He planted a small kiss to my head and we both lied there. He sang random song lyrics into my hair until I could feel my eyelids getting heavy.

“Tired, love?” I nodded a sleepy yawn and he lifted me up.

“We can’t stay here the whole night, darling. People will be back in the morning and I’m pretty sure they don’t want to see us naked and to see that people just had sex in the small room they are about to enter.” I laughed a bit but not really because I was really tired. He put everything back the way it was when we got there and pulled out his phone.

“Paul….yeah, we’re ready….she’s really tired….alright…thanks man.” He clicked his phone and shoved it back in his pocket.

“Paul’s down there now, about to bring us back down.” I nodded and he scooped me up bridal style and waited for Paul to lower us back to the ground and back to reality.

“Don’t worry about the blanket and things, Lou. I got that,” Paul said when we reached the ground.

“You sure?”

“Yeah, you got a lady to carry,” he said with a wink. Lou laughed and smiled down at me and I just cradled my head into his chest.

—

I didn’t remember the car ride because I had slept through it. But, when we got to the boys’ flat, Louis scooped me up bridal style again and carried me to his room. once we were under the covers, he pulled me into his chest and wrapped his legs around mine.

“Thank you, Louis,” I whispered.

“For what?”

“Thank you for the perfect evening.”

He chuckled a bit before answering, “Thank you for the perfect girl.” He kissed my temple and that is when I fell asleep.

—

When I awoke the next morning, I found Louis twirling my hair around his finger before he saw my eyes open and he beamed at me.

“Good morning, baby,” he said pressing a kiss to my cheek.

“Morning”

“Last night was wonderful,” he said still smiling.

“It was perfect,” I agreed. He smiled and gave me Eskimo kisses.

“We could just lie in bed all day,” he said pulling me closer to his chest.

“Yeah?”

“Mhm, the boys are out today. We have the whole house to ourselves. We could watch movies, play ga-” he was interrupted by the doorbell ringing.

“Just ignore them. They’ll go away.” He said. But whoever it was, they didn’t. They constantly rang the doorbell and Louis had enough.

“For fuck’s sake,” he groaned getting off the bed and marching downstairs.

“Play nice,” I called to him. I heard him open the door and there was dead silence. Then, after a few minutes, I heard voices mumbling. I could tell something was wrong.

“Louis? Who is it?” I called walking down the stairs. I reach the bottom of the stairs to see Louis staring at me. His jaw was shut tight and he had one hand on the door and the other clenched into a fist and his eyes were filled with shock and sadness and confusion. And I knew exactly why because I saw why. It was the person standing in the doorway. I couldn’t believe they were there.


	10. Chapter 10

Lauren’s POV

“You’re such a doofus,” I said laughing at Niall who just spilled pancake mix all over the kitchen floor.

“Well, this bowl shouldn’t be so slippery!” he said laughing back. I came out of the bathroom with a wet cloth. I bent down on all fours on the white tile floor behind the counter and wiped up all the powder.

“Let me do it,” he said bending down the same way and reaching for the cloth.

“I think you’ve done enough,” I said smiling at him he stuck his tongue out at me and I giggled. He reached one hand behind me to grab the back of my neck and petted my hair.

“You are so beautiful,” he whispered making me blush.

“I love you,” he whispered again.

“I love you too,” I whispered back. He smiled my favorite smile and pulled me in for a kiss over the dusty mix all over the floor. We were like that for a while until my phone started ringing.

She feels better than ever. And we’re on fire, making our way back from Mars. 15…there’s still time for you, time to buy and time to choose

“Rachel’s calling,” I said smirking at him. He sighed removed his hands which were placed firmly on top of mine on the floor. I sprang up and dashed to the coffee table in the living room.

“Rachie Poo,” I said into the phone with a light tone as I always do. I heard her sniffle through the phone and she was quiet for a moment and I could just tell she was trying to make sure her voice wouldn’t break.

“Rach, what happened?”

“I’m at the park,” she said, failing to keep her voice from breaking, “can you come get me?”

“We’re on our way,” I said hanging up. I grabbed the keys from the table and Niall looked at me questioningly but I just waved him over and he followed me towards the car.

—

I drove aimlessly around the park looking for Rachel. It was the same park Ni and I had gone to after the movie. “There she is,” Niall said pointing at Rachel who was sitting with her knees tucked into her chest staring at nothing in particular, just spacing off. She had red cheeks from the cold and tired, pink eyes from the tears. She had been crying a lot and I could tell.

“Rach?” I called her name carefully as I took a seat next to her. Niall was waiting in the car and I made him promise not to call Louis. I didn’t want anyone a part of this if I didn’t even know what was wrong. She didn’t say anything. She just sat there and stared at the green patch of grass surrounding us.

“Rachel, look at me,” I said in a bit of a stern voice and she looked up at me, fresh new tear streaks down her freckled cheeks. “What happened?”

She took in a few shaky breaths before speaking. “We had just woken up. We were laying there talking about our plans for the day, and it was nice. Then, the doorbell rang. Louis got up and answered it and he was silent, which was weird for him, so I got up to see what was wrong. When I got down there, he was looking at me and he looked horrified. Then, there she was, just standing there in the doorway.” She paused as she wiped a few more of her tears away.

“It was Eleanor.” She said looking at me directly in the eye. Her eyes were a cloudy gray unlike the light bright blue she normally wore.

“What happened?”

She told me the entire story.

“I stood there at the doorway looking back and forth between the two of them. El looked confused and Lou looked scared. ‘Who is she?’ El asked Lou giving me an evil look.

‘Eleanor, what are you doing here?’ he asked her carefully, like he wasn’t trying to hurt me. He probably felt like he was walking on eggshells. And then, she just walked herself into the house and put her fucking white girl, designer handbag on the chair in the living room. She was acting like she fucking owned the place; like she was still with him.

‘Louis, I came back because I need you. I’m sorry I cheated on you with Daniel. I was stupid and I wasn’t thinking but I know what I’m thinking now. I want you back, Louis. I still love you and I just want you back.’ She put her fucking arms around his neck but then he did push her away. And then he said, ‘El, I’m sorry but I’m with Rachel now and I love her’ he put his arms around my waist and held me pretty tight and then everything was a little more settling for me. But then, she had to open her mouth again and she snorted. She said ‘Oh my god! I thought she was the maid! Look at her, Lou, she’s in those raggedy gray sweats and that old band t shirt that you can’t even tell which band it was but I bet it was Justin Bieber or Taylor Swift. And don’t even get me started on her hair.’

‘Eleanor!’

‘What? I’m just telling you the truth. She’s the white trash and look at me. I put on this nice outfit for you because I know how much you loved my wardrobe. Come on, Louis. You’re Louis Tomlinson. You’re one fifth of the biggest boy band in the world and you can have anyone you wanted, including me. But you’re going to be a dumbfuck and pick this piece of shit over me. I made you happy Lou. And I bet that when I sat on your lap it didn’t cut of your circulation.’

He started yelling then. ‘Eleanor! Are you fucking kidding me?’ he turned to me and gripped both of my shoulders and I was trying so hard not to cry then. ‘Don’t cry,’ he whispered to me, ‘I’ll be back’ and then he walked out to the front porch with El. As soon as he was out the door I let a few tears fall and I watched them. There was a lot of muffled yelling from Louis and muffled whining from Eleanor. And then,” she paused to wipe some more tears.

“And then, she wrapped her skinny ass arms around his neck and…and she…she kissed him. It was a forced kiss and very hard and rough but I think that is what made it all worse. She fucking kissed him and I didn’t let him see me because I ran out the back door and I came here. I cried all the way here. I cried for a couple hours and that’s when I called you.” I wrapped my arms around her and let her cry because I knew she was still holding a lot in. she sobbed into my shoulder and I felt each salty tears stain and moisten my shirt. I ran my hand up and down her back and waited for her to calm down. I caught Niall’s eye from the car and he looked scared.

‘Are you okay’ he mouthed and I nodded. I, myself, was trying to hold back tears because I had to stay strong not only for Rachel but for Niall too. I couldn’t help from wanting to cry. Seeing Rachel cry wanted to make me feel like falling apart. She’s like that little thread that keeps me together and when she breaks, I break.

“Rach, it’s going to be okay. I promise.”

“I’m sorry, I’m being a baby.”

“No, you’re not, you’re fine.” I let her cry the rest of her tears before she needed to go home. It was only noon and she was having an awful day. Niall got out of the car when we were approaching it. He wrapped his arms around Rachel and petted her hair with his hand and shushed her and made her feel better. I physically saw her spirit lift just a tad and I loved him for that. He had this energy about him that just made everyone feel a little bit better. Rachel climbed into the back and Niall shut the door behind her. He turned to me and gripped my arms right below my elbows and planted a feathery kiss to my lips.

“You okay?” he asked me.

“I’m fine. Thank you,” I said giving him a small smile.

“For what?”

“Just being there for her. It means a lot to both of us.” He gave me a sweet smile and took my hand in his. “Hey, it’s no problem. Rach is really cool and I love her.” He winked at me and poked my nose. “Not as much as you though.” He whispered and I kissed his cheek. “C’mon, we got to get home.”

—

The ride home was quiet. I would reach back to Rachel and squeeze her knee every once and a while. I just wanted to remind her I was right there I guess. We walked through the door and Rachel crashed onto the couch and I stood in the doorway with Niall.

“I’m going to go get her some snacks. You want anything?” he shook his head no but I could tell he was lying. When does Niall Horan turn down food?

“Reese’s?” he tried to keep a straight face but broke out into a smile and poked my cheeks.

“You’re such a good girlfriend,” he said kissing me again, “go, I’ll stay here with her.” I nodded and he gave me one last kiss. “We should probably stop doing this in front of her.” I said pushing him away. He looked disappointed but nodded. “I’m sorry; I just really like kissing you.”

“I know, I’m irresistible.” I said with a quick wink and a kiss on his cheek and rushed out the door.

Yes, I was going to get her snacks and a movie. And we were just going to spend the day together or the weekend. But first, I had a different stop. I pulled into the driveway and knocked on the door only to have Harry swing it open. He had a look of anticipation only to be quickly disappointed. “Where is he?” was all I said.

“In his room, he won’t come out.” He opened the door and let me in. I set my bag down and headed upstairs only to have Harry’s hand pull me down. “He’s not coming out for anyone.”

“I can try, can I not?” he nodded and then pulled me into a huge bear hug.

“Please try. He’s only like this because of that bitch. That’s how it was last time too. I’m tired of seeing him that way. I miss that goofy smile and Rachel brought it back.”

“I got this, Hazza.” He nodded and smiled at me and I went upstairs. Three knocks.

“Haz, go away,” he said through the door.

“Lou,” I mumbled. He swung open the door then and I gave him a smug smile.

“That’s not fair,” he said disappointed, “you two are too alike.”

“It got you to open the door didn’t it?” he rolled his eyes and began to close it but I put my foot out.

“Lauren, I’m not in the mood.”

“I don’t care. I’m the only way you can get to her, so talk.” He stood there with a straight face until he lost it. He broke down and pulled me into a tight hug and I felt another set of salty tears hitting the fabric of my shirt again. I quickly our entwined bodies into his room and shut the door form behind his back.

“I lost her. I fucking lost her. I lost my favorite,” was all he cried into my ear for the next twenty minutes.

“Shush, Louis. It’s going to be okay. You’re going to be fine,” I whispered. He just gripped me tighter and cried harder and damn it was hard not to cry either.

Once he calmed down, we sat on the edge of his bed and he held a firm grip on my hands. It was all friendly of course.

“Now, you want to explain to me what happened? But, please, skip the part before you guys went outside. I heard that part.” He nodded and I could see sadness hit his face.

“El was being a bitch, so I took her outside. I told her to go but she argued with me and called Rachel a whore and that is when I really lost it. I screamed at her and told her she had no right parading herself in my life again, especially after Daniel, that son of a bitch, but she didn’t listen. She told me I was just using Rachel as a rebound to make me feel better about myself. She told me that she was really sorry about going to Daniel and that she just needed one more chance with me. That’s when I told her I was in love with Rachel and she said not after this and then she kissed me. I tried pushing her away but she had been taking these classes, karate or some shit, so she had a really strong lock. I pried her off and it was only a couple seconds but I instantly felt bad. I looked through the window and saw Rachel running out the back door and it was the most heart breaking sight I ever saw. I flipped shit on El. I screamed at her for what she just did and I told her I didn’t ever want to see her again. I told her I did not give two fucks about that fucker Daniel and I hoped that he cheated on her and that’s why they were through because then maybe she would understand what I went through. Maybe it made her feel like she wasn’t good enough for someone that you loved. And now,” he sniffled, “now Rachel feels that way. I know she does. I know her. I may not know her as well as you do,” he paused.

“No one knows Rachel better than I do. Rachel doesn’t know Rachel better than I do.” I said smiling. He chuckled but it was fake.

“Anyway, I know that’s what Rachel’s thinking. She already thought that before but now she must believe it. The thing is, though, I’m not good enough for her. She’s too good for me and always will be. But I was blessed with having her anyway. It felt great to be able to hug her and love her and kiss her temple and tickle her and see that goofy smile and tell her I loved her. No, it wasn’t that I loved her. It’s that I love her. It’s the present tense, Laur. That’s why I need her. That’s why I want her. But, I lost her. I lost my baby, Lauren. And it isn’t even my fault. El’s a witch bitch and she just reappears whenever something I have is going good and she has to fuck it all up. I just…I just want Rachel back.”

“And you can have her back. You need to tell her that, Louis.”

“She won’t answer me. I called her 12 times and left her 31 text messages. She doesn’t want to talk to me anymore.”

“C’mon, we’ll get her back for ya, Lou.” I said with a smile, tugging at his hand.

“You think she’s going to listen?”

“I know she is.”

“Are you sure?”

“Who knows her better?” I asked lightly. He smiled at me as I pulled him along. But, before we left his room, he pulled me into a hug. Except this time, there were no tears.

“Thank you, Lauren. Thank you so, so much. I actually can’t thank you enough.”

“No need to thank me, Tommo.”

“You’re the best,” he whispered

“I know,” I said smugly.

“I love you, kiddo,” he whispered.

“I love you too, Louis. Now c’mon, let’s go get your bird.” He ruffled my hair and we jumped in the car.

Louis was driving and we stopped at the convenient store to get Rachel her favorites: Throwback Mountain Dew, Flamin’ Hot Cheetos, and The Perks of Being a Wallflower.

We were driving and talking about what and what not to say during this apology thing he’s about to do. Lou pulled his phone out and was texting Niall to warn him he was coming.

“Stop texting and start driving, Lou. I’ll text Niall.” He nodded and apologized and I continued the conversation. We were pulling up to a red light so he began to slow down but it quickly switched to green as the intersecting street’s light turned red. Louis sped up again to achieve his original pace. There had been another car pulling up and as we were reaching the crossing, we were too late to realize that the person in the other car wasn’t paying attention. They attempted to pass the red light but…failed. 3 seconds. Three seconds was all it took before our car was totaled, blood was on the windows, Louis was unconscious, and I couldn’t find any strength to cry for help.


	11. Chapter 11

Louis’ POV

Thirty seconds. Thirty fucking seconds before we were hit, Lauren had told me to not text and drive. So, I stopped. So, why did this happen? Was it some sort of karma?

I couldn’t open my eyes. I heard the ambulance sirens nearing nearer and nearer and I heard Lauren breathing really loud nearby. All I wanted to do in that moment was to be able to look over to her and see her sitting there completely fine. But I couldn’t move. And by the sounds of it, she didn’t seem like it. I was able to pry my eyes open and look over after a few minutes of struggling. Lauren was sitting there with her eyes squeezed shut and blood dripping down her face. She looked like she was trying to talk but couldn’t.

“L…Lauren,” I managed to gasp out and her eyes shot open and she looked at me.

“Are you okay?” she wasn’t even speaking. She was just mouthing the words.

“Yeah, yeah I think so. Are you?” she just shook her head and I was so scared. Like Rachel, I had just met the lass a few days back, but I already loved the little bug. Not the way I loved Rachel, of course. But I still loved her.

“Stay with me, Lauren. I’m right here,” I grabbed her hand which was stuck under a popped out piece of the car. She winced at the pain and I figured a broken arm so I let my grip loosen but I needed to still hold onto her.

A man and a woman with EMT jackets on came rushing to either side of the car, the man on Lauren’s side and the woman on mine. The man pried off Lauren’s door – which was very easy considering how damaged it was – and carefully undid her seatbelt.

“Ma’am, what’s your name?” he asked her. She didn’t answer because she couldn’t speak so he asked again.

“Ma’am, I need you to tell me your name.”

“Her name is Lauren. Lauren Doyle.”

“Sir,” the woman said looking at me, “We need her to answer because we need to know she is responding and can remember the basic things. That shows that functions are working properly. She undid my seatbelt as she spoke.

“Well, obviously she can’t fucking respond. She hurt her throat.”

“What’s your name sir?”

“Louis Tomlinson”

“Okay, Louis,” she said prying the door off with the help of another man. She examined me from the car and asked me what hurt and all these medical questions and I would answer but every answer ended with “Is Lauren okay?” and “I need to call my girlfriend”. I didn’t even know if I had the right to call her my girlfriend anymore but I just needed to talk to Rach.

“Sir, we will contact your girlfriend as soon as you reach the hospital. Now, do you think you can move?” I tried getting out of the car but to no avail. I didn’t feel strong as the three men lifted me from my car and onto a gurney. I felt like a pussy. Although, I was going in and out of consciousness every five minutes, I still felt incredibly weak. They set me in the back of the ambulance next to Lauren’s gurney. Her eyes were closed and she was barely moving except for her chest heaving up and down.

“Lauren,” I said looking at her in anticipation. She didn’t move. She just laid there in dead silence. Dead silence. No, not even happening. I’m not letting that happen.

“Lauren, answer me!” she was pissing me off. Well, I guess I pissed myself off. My friend might be dead right now. Because of me, my friend might be dead. One of my best friends, in fact, might be dead…because of me.

“Lauren, answer me, damn it!”

“Louis! Please stop screaming your anxiety levels are reaching high levels.” A nurse yelled at me. By now, we had been on our way to hospital and there were all sorts of cords and tubes hooked up to me and Lauren. We had our individual doctors working on us and I decided not to disobey anyone here. They were trying to help us and I guess they knew what they were doing. I just reached for Lauren’s hand. I gripped it tight. It was her holding my hand when I was crying over Rachel. It was her who came to get me when Rachel was obviously pissed at me. It was because she knew I wasn’t leaving Rachel. I wish Rachel knew that. But, Lauren knew because I promised her. She trusted me. I trusted her. She was a great friend and I was not letting her go.

I felt a needle in my arm and I winced at the pain but it wasn’t that bad. I wasn’t one to cower from the little things like needles or spiders. I was a big boy. My phone started ringing and it was Niall’s solo from ‘More than this’, so it was obviously Niall calling. I wanted to answer it and tell him but whatever was in that shut had me creeping closer and closer to unconsciousness.

“Answer that… and tell Niall… where we… are. He’s… important. I… I need him a…at the hospit…” and it was all black from there.

—

When I woke up, I was in a hospital room with bland coloured walls and furniture. It had an old TV on one of those stands stuck in the wall like in the classrooms in school. I had a cast around my leg – a blue one at that: YES! – and a small neck brace. It wasn’t one of those bulky ones you see in the movies.

I looked to my right – carefully of course. I don’t think my neck is that bad because I can still turn it a bit. Maybe it wasn’t that broken. – to see Lauren lying in the bed beside me. She had bandages on her head and a sling and cast on the arm I had held onto in the car. Her eyes were closed but her breathing was more even and I felt a huge weight lift off my shoulders.

Just then, a nurse came in and explained to me what had happened. Lauren had stiches in her head, a broken arm (as I suspected. Maybe a doctor should be my next job), and she had the wind knocked out of her pretty badly, and the heavy heaving from trying to breathe damaged her throat, so she won’t be able to speak for a couple days. I, myself, had a stiff neck and a broken leg obviously. I also had a few minor bandages along my arm from being scratched on the way out of my car. That however was the only one who was severely hurt. Poor Betsy had been shattered. Oh well, that didn’t matter now. Lauren and I were doing alright now.  The nurse left after giving me some water and the door flung open again to see a similar blonde head rushing through it in a blur.

“Louis, you fucking wanker, you scared the hell out of me!” he shouted wrapping his arms around me. I chuckled and hugged him back, a little too tight maybe.

“I fucking love you man,” Niall said hugging me just as tight as I was him.

“Back at you mate,” I said through a smile. I heard a sniffle from the other side of the room to see Rachel hugging Lauren’s sleeping body. She wasn’t dead. She wasn’t even close. And Rachel knew that. But, it had to be quite the scare to think that she was dead. I should know. I thought that less than two hours ago and I was with her. Rachel reached behind her neck and unclipped the moon necklace she was wearing and placed it on the bedside table. Rachel had told me about the necklace and what it meant to Lauren. Oh fuck, I screwed things up.

“Ni, you can let go now,” I said hoping Rachel would come over here. He nodded and pulled away and gave me a fist bump, trying to seem manlier than how he was acting at the moment. I smiled at him and returned it gratefully before he paced over to Lauren’s side. He entwined their fingers and pulled a chair up to the side of her bed and kissed up and down her arms. Rachel hugged Niall from behind him she kissed his cheek. I didn’t care. I just wanted her over here. She looked up at me then and made her way over to me.

“I’m going to go get something to eat,” Niall said awkwardly backing out of the room then. There were a few moments of silence before she spoke.

“How are you feeling?”

“Awful. But not because of this shit,” is said pointing at my injuries, “I feel awful because of what happened. Rachel, I swear, I didn’t kiss her. I didn’t want to kiss her. I wanted to kiss you. I still do. I love you more than anything Rachel. I just told her I loved you and she freaked out and told me that I still loved her and then she kissed me. I pushed her away as quickly as I could. And then, I saw you running off. I felt awful. I felt more than awful. I felt – I don’t even think there is a word to describe it. I tried calling and texting and you didn’t answer and I thought I lost you. But then Laurens showed up and helped me and we were on our way and then this dumb fuck of a driver wasn’t paying attention and rammed into the side. I just wanted to apologize and hug you and hold you and stop your tears and kiss you and tell you that I was never leaving. But I lost that chance. But I’m sorry. I really am. I didn’t want to hurt you, ever.” As I spoke, she stood there listening, head down. My eyes caught the attention of a red, orange, and yellow plastic bag sitting on the chair in the corner of the room. “Those are for you,” I said looking at the bag of Flamin’ Hot Cheetos, Mountain Dew, and that movie she loved.

“Lauren said you weren’t one for flowers – which I knew by the way – and even though we’re done, I still want you to have it. I just really hope you accept my apology.” She looked at me a second before racing over to me and pressing her lips to mine. I gratefully returned the kiss and wrapped my arms around her waist and held her as close as I could. We parted and I took a second to catch my breath.

“I never said we were done, Louis. I love you. That hasn’t changed. I’m sorry I ran out crying.”

I pulled her into the bed next to me and she snuggled her head under mine.

“Don’t be sorry, love, this is my fault. All of it is. I’m sorry I broke your cousin,” I said tracing circles around the freckles on her arm.

“Eh, she’s not that broken. She won’t talk for two days so I guess it’s a bonus,” she said with a smirk and I chuckled.

“Hey, come on, she’s not that bad,” I said smiling. She pressed her lips to mine and I hugged her tight. “I’m not letting you go,” I whispered into her hair before kissing it.

“Okay,” she said quietly

“Okay.” I mocked.

“Okay.”

“Okay.”

“Oh my god, stop flirting with me.” she said laughing. I didn’t get it.

“Sorry, you’re just so irresistible.” I said poking her cheeks. She let out a sigh and I smiled goofily.

“Open up a book, sometime, Lou.” She giggled.

“Sorry,” I mumbled.

“Now what?”

“Let’s watch that movie of yours.” She smiled at me and kissed my lips before leaving the bed to get the snacks and movie and popping it into the TV.

She collapsed next to me and she shared her food with me – occasionally. She was very possessive over her Throwback Mountain Dew and Flaming Hot Cheetos. That’s what she said anyway. But I didn’t mind. I had my baby in my arms again. We watched the movie that Rachel continuously quoted. But again, I didn’t mind. The movie was quite interesting. The only thing I didn’t like was that Rachel said that she and Lauren were a lot like Charlie, the main character. And whoever has seen the movie, knows that’s probably not a good thing. It worried me. Hopefully, she just meant how he was different from everyone else. He was original, which she was. I guess she was, if you didn’t count that her and Lauren were the exact same person. They were both original. Niall came in later and by then Rachel was sleeping and smiled at us.

“Good job, Lou,” he said winking. I nodded my head and smiled back and he curled into a ball in the chair next to Lauren’s bed and grasped her hand. She was still sleeping and has been for about four hours, ever since we got here. It was 11pm now and the doctor said she should be up in the morning and everything was going good with her, which I was thankful for.  Soon, Niall was asleep in the chair and Rachel was asleep and Lauren was asleep and I was alone. But I didn’t feel alone. I had my friends and my girlfriend. My girlfriend, she was still my girlfriend. I meant what I said. I wasn’t going to let her go anytime soon. I loved her. And she still loved me. I kissed her forehead and petted and twirled her hair until I drifted off thinking about how I felt safe and sound at home, when I wasn’t even at my house. I was just in Rachel’s arms, which was all the home I needed.


	12. Chapter 12

*Niall’s POV*

“Will she be up soon?” I asked anxiously, staring at Nancy, the nurse, with pleading eyes. She was such a sweet lass, and I’ve come to have made acquaintances with her. I sat by the side of Lauren’s bed in the chair I’ve been living in for the past 24 hours. I have probably asked Nancy five times in the last two hours. I don’t care. I just really wanted to see my favorite pair of sea green eyes.

“Niall, as I told you ten minutes ago, yes she should be up any minute.”

“Thanks, Nancy. But, sorry about that.”

“Don’t worry about it,” she said smiling at me before walking out the door. And then it was just Lauren and me. Louis and Rachel went to the cafeteria for lunch. I sat there humming to myself tapping against the arms of the chairs. I was basically doing anything to keep my mind busy. Finally, about fifteen minutes later, Lauren shifted a bit in the bed and I shot my head up. I took her hand in mine gently and I felt her tighten her grip around my hand. I became so excited the smile was going to break my face. Her eyes fluttered open and at first she looked confused but as soon as she saw me she gave me a welcoming smile.

“Well, hello, princess,” I said kissing her hand. She opened her mouth to speak but I stopped her.

“Don’t talk. You can’t. You screwed up your throat from trying to yell for help. It’s badly scratched and you need to stay silent for a couple days.” She looked at me questioningly.

“You do remember what happened, right?” she nodded yes and then I could see her connecting the dots. A frown showed on her face and it was a bit heartbreaking to see her that way.

“But, here,” I said reaching into my backpack, “I bought a dry erase board and a bunch of markers for you to talk.” I handed her the board and markers and she smiled fondly at me.

She scribbled on the board for a second before showing me.

_I love you_

“I love you too,” I said smiling at her. What I would give to hear her voice right now.

_Can I still kiss you?_

I gave her a smug smile before leaning over her bed and planting a strong kiss to her lips.

“You’re welcome,” I said with a wink.

 _Don’t make me laugh!_  She had a huge smile on her face and looked like she was trying to do everything she can to hold it in. I kissed her cheek. “Sorry baby.”  
 I slowly see reality hit her a minute and she becomes frantic. She scribbled on her board and then held it up with a sad look on her face.

_Where’s Lou? Is he okay? Are he and Rach okay? Where are they?_

“Lauren, calm down. Louis is fine. Rachel is fine. They’re fine. Everything is okay. They’re just getting some lunch.”

She nodded and I saw relief wash over her. “Room for me on there?” I asked with a smirk. She smiled brightly and scooted her body to the left. I climbed my way onto the thin, white linen blankets and pulled her closer into my chest.

 _How have you been?_ She wrote on her white board.

“Honestly?” she nodded.

“Worried as hell. The doctor continuously told me you’d be fine. But, I…I don’t know. I was just worried.” I said not looking at her, but rather twirling her hair around my index finger. Her brows furrowed and her lips pursed.  _I’m sorry_. I simply smiled and kissed her forehead.

“No need for the apology, darling.” she smiled with reassurance and we both let a few moments of peaceful silence pass. This was the first time I had been in this room and was happy that it was quiet. It was the kind of quietness you have with another person that you enjoy. It was pleasant. It was nice to know that you can still spend so much time with someone that you it doesn’t bother either of you when it’s dead silent in the room. You don’t need to have a conversation. You just like to know they’re there, next to you.

“I love you,” I whispered into her hair. I felt her cheeks grow hot and she placed a lingering kiss to mine. I assumed it was her way of saying she loved me too. Because, knowing Lauren, she was just too lazy to write it out once more. But I didn’t mind it one bit. I didn’t mind her kisses one bit.

We heard giggling echo down the hallway and one could only tell it was Louis and Rachel.

“Ha! I still beat you here! And I’m on crutches!” Louis said sticking his tongue out at Rach who was just making her way into the room.

“I  _let_ you win because you’re on crutches, Lou.”

“Whatever you need to tell yourself. I still win!” she giggled and he gave her a light Eskimo kiss. It took them both a minute to reenter reality after that. That was the moment when they realized Lauren had regained her consciousness.

“Hey! Look who finally decided to roll out of bed!” Lou said with a light smile. I saw Lauren closely examine Lou’s neck brace and leg cast and I could tell exactly what she was thinking. Lauren always seems to find a way to blame everything on herself. She doesn’t like herself that much. Well, I probably shouldn’t say that. I just don’t think she’s as fond of herself as she should be. Finally, after a moment for her to process what he had just said, she just stuck her tongue out at him.

“How ya feeling, love?” he asked her. She gave him a firm thumbs up.

_You?_

“I’m fantastic.” He said flashing a huge smile. She smiled back at him and began to scribble on her board.

 _And you Curly?_  I don’t get why Rachel is Curly. She doesn’t even have curly hair.

“I’m just dandy,” Rachel said with a smile and Louis chuckled at her response. He grabbed her by her waist and pulled her closer to him. He planted a kiss on both her cheeks and then finally one to her lips. It was so awkward because of his crutches. But they were laughing and giggling and smiling and…I don’t know. They made the awkwardness cute. I was happy for Lou.

Louis hobbled back over to his bed and as he got settled in to the pillow and Rachel into the chair close by, we heard a knock against the open door.

“Knock, knock,” we heard the oh-so familiar voice chime from the doorway. Liam was standing there smiling with what seemed to be relief.

“We’re here and we’re also sorry we weren’t here sooner,” he said rushing into the room. He knelt down on the other side of Lauren’s bed and hugged her briefly and planted a subtle kiss to her forehead.

“How ya feeling?” she smiled brightly at him and then began scribbling.

_I’m fine_

“What’s with the board? Cat got your tongue?” Liam asked chuckling to his not so funny joke.

_Actually, my throat_

I began explaining to Liam what happened but I was cut off by Harry rushing into the room. He didn’t say anything. He didn’t even seem to take notice to anyone else in the room, but instead, he just rushed to Louis bedside and hugged him tighter than ever.

“Hi Hazza,” Louis said in a raspy voice smiling.

“I’m so sorry, Lou. I should have been here earlier. I should have driven you two.”

“You’re fine, Harry.”

Louis nodded and smiled at him and that seemed to make Haz feel better. It always did.

“And you Lauren?” he asked turning to face the two of us. She held up her previous answer for Liam and he furrowed his brows together. He pointed towards the board questioningly.

“Well,” I started, “as I was saying before, she had the wind knocked out of her, and the heavy breathing scratched her throat. So, she can’t speak for a few days.”

“Well, thank god, I get pretty tired of her constant talking,” Rachel said with a smirk. Louis cackled really loudly and she just smiled and kissed his lips. I think he was only laughing because he was just happy to have Rachel back. It’s not like he ever lost her. When Lauren left to get him, I got an earful of Rachel crying. It’s not like I minded. I was happy to comfort her at the time. She’s a wonderful friend. I love the kid.

Lauren gave Rachel an evil look and we all laughed. I kissed her cheek and that brought a smile to her face.

“I’m just kidding, Lauren! I love you!” Rachel said jumping from her seat and onto the bed. Lauren hit her with her board but they were both laughing. Zayn came in then and smiled at everyone. He had two bags in his hands and held them up in the air.

“I got presents,” he said handing a bag to Lauren and Lou. Lauren revealed a brown soft teddy bear and I saw the most spectacular smile stretch across her face. It warmed my heart to see her smile like that.

Louis pulled out a stack of Spiderman comic books from his bag and he smiled bigger than the moon.

“Thanks Z!”

“No problem, Lou,” he said returning the same smile. Zayn then wrapped his arm around Liam’s shoulder who had a bit of a disappointed frown staring at the floor.

“And I got this one for you Li,” he said handing him a Batman comic. Liam smiled a goofy smile and whispering a ‘Thank you’. Zayn patted his back then and hopped off. Nancy came in then and smiled brightly at Lauren, but she just tightened her grip on my hand. I smiled at her and whispered a quiet ‘You’re fine’ into her ear so only she would hear it.

“Hi, Lauren, I’m your and Louis’ nurse. My name is Nancy. How are you feeling?”

Once again, Lauren held up her sign that said  _I’m fine._  Nancy smiled at her and asked others to leave the room. The boys all went to get something to eat while Lou, Rach, and I stayed in the room. Nancy did the simple things like checking blood pressure and used a stethoscope to check her heart beat. Everything like that was fine. She then showed us X-rays of her throat. It had deep cuts all along the sides. She couldn’t eat anything solid for at least four days, Nancy said, but should be able to talk in just a couple days from now. She’d also have to have her arm cast and sling for the next three weeks

Louis had to be on crutches for three weeks as well and had to have his neck brace on for two days. Thankfully, they were both okayed to return home today.

—

The boys went home after that, promising Lauren a few visits over the next couple days. Louis and Rachel went back to the girls’ flat and I decided to take Lauren out for some ice cream. She took a seat on the cool black metal picnic table under the shade of a huge oak tree, bits and pieces of the summer sun shining through the branches and leaves of the trees, while I ran to the small ice cream stand on the other side of the walkway in the park. It was the same park Rachel cried in. It was the same park I fell for those mesmerizing green eyes.  I stood in line waiting to order our ice cream while watching Lauren. She was looking around the park until she set her sight on a couple of little kids. They looked like they were only about 4 or 5, a boy and a girl, and they were running around the open green grass. They must have been playing tag or something of the sort because the little girl was chasing the boy after he had touched her shoulder. While running, the girl tripped over her own feet and plummeted towards the ground. The boy stopped abruptly in his tracks and whipped his head around. The girl was clutching her leg whimpering at the pain from her scratched knee. He sauntered towards the brunette lass and knelt down beside her. He looked at her teary eyes and frowned. He said something to her and she shook her head and his frown grew bigger. He dipped his head to her knee and gave it a peck of his lips. She sniffled and smiled out of the corner of his mouth. He smiled brightly at her and she kissed his cheek, making the little boy blush. He pulled her to her feet and walked her towards the bench to the two mothers who weren’t paying attention the entire time, but instead talking to one another. I looked over at Lauren then who was smiling at the cute spectacle she just witnessed. It was the same smile she had when Zayn gave her the teddy bear.

“Sir,” the man at the ice cream stand said annoyed. I turned to see that the entire line that once stood before me was gone and there was a ten feet space between myself and the stand.

“Sorry about that, mate,” I said pulling out my wallet, “uh I’ll take one vanilla cone and one chocolate cone with sprinkles please.” Lauren loved her sprinkles. She was such a child.

I handed him the payment and jogged over to Lauren. She smiled up at me as I handed her the cone.

“What?” I asked her giggling. She licked her ice cream and pointed towards the rainbow assorted sprinkles.

“Well you didn’t think I would forget your sprinkles did you?” she smiled brightly trying to hold back a laugh. She let a little giggle slip though. It was scratchy and raspy and it made her sound so sick it hurt. Literally, it hurt because she clutched her throat and squinted her eyes in pain.

“I’m sorry, love,” I said wrapping an arm around her shoulder, “Take a lick of your ice cream. It’ll help.” She did as I had suggested and nodded. I smiled at her and kissed her temple.

“Those kids were cute, huh?” I asked her as they ran passed us. She looked up at me and smiled again with a nod of her head.

“I thought so, too.” Just then, her phone began to ring and she pulled it out of her pocket. The contact read “Ma” with her mother’s face on the screen. She glanced at me worriedly, knowing she couldn’t speak and that I would have to do it for her. The only problem was, though, is that neither Lauren nor Rachel had told Lauren’s parents about meeting us, let alone dating us. I nodded slightly at her telling her it’d be okay and she hit accept. I pressed my ear to the other side of her phone to listen.

“Lauren, are you okay? Rachel called and told me she was on her way to the hospital because you were in a car crash. I wanted to call sooner but we were out camping and my phone died and I couldn’t charge it until we got to this gas station. How are you feeling? Please tell me you’re okay.” Her mother spoke all within two breaths. This didn’t sound like the kind of person Lauren had painted her to be. She had told me her mum was quite the sarcastic and a very relaxed, laid back person. But, I guess if my daughter were in a car crash and I was thousands of miles away, with no contact to her whatsoever, I think I would be a little not-myself at the moment as well. Lauren tried her hardest to answer but her voice was quieter than a whisper and she was killing her throat. I took the phone from her and gripped her hand with my other free hand.

“Mrs. Doyle?” I said nervously through the phone.

“Who is this?”

“Um, it’s uh…Niall…Niall Horan.”

“From One Direction?!” her mother half shouted through the phone. Lauren smiled widely and nodded at me.

“Yes, um that’s me. Listen, Lauren is fine. She just can’t talk because she has a severely damaged throat. Besides that and a broken arm, she is completely fine. She’s uh…she’s quite the trooper.”

Her mom sighed out in relief and she sounded like she was okay. “My daughter is such an asshole. She had me worried the entire night!” I laughed and her mother laughed with me and Lauren let out an annoyed sigh.

“So, Niall, would you like to tell me why you, of all people, are answering her phone?”

Oh god. Here we go.

“Well, I’ve um…I’ve kind of been dating her lately.”

“No, seriously.” Her mom laughed. She seemed like she was being quite serious.

“Actually, I am being quite serious. We’ve been together for about a month now.”

“Niall, you don’t have to keep the joke up anymore.”

“Mrs. Doyle, I am being totally serious when I say that I love your daughter very much,” I said in the most serious tone I can muster up.

“Well, why didn’t she tell me?” her mother asked in a happy tone.

Lauren snickered and held up her board. I laughed a bit before I read it off like a cue card.

“She said nobody asked her,” I said laughing.

“Typical Lauren. Well, thank you Niall for telling me what has happened. And I expect a visit out of you three soon.”

“What about Lou? He and Rach have been together for just as long.”

“Figures,” she said sighing and I smiled. I liked her mom. “Well, then I expect the  _four_  of you out here soon.”

“Of course we will ma’am. As soon as Lauren and Lou are doing better, we’ll start planning a trip. Lauren has been saying she’s wanted to see you guys before they start school.”

“Sounds like a plan. Take care of my daughter, Niall.”

“I plan to.” We said our goodbyes then and I handed the phone back to Lauren.

“She seemed to like me a lot considering she has never met me.”

_Well, I kind of spent the last four years drooling over you so she knows a bit about you._

I chuckled and pulled her close to me and took a bite of my ice cream.

“So, what do you say to a trip to Chicago to see your family in about three weeks?” I asked her smirking. She returned the same smile I gave her and nodded a huge yes.

“You think they’ll like me?” I asked her nervously. I knew how much not just her immediate family was to her, but all of her aunts, uncles, cousins, second cousins, cousin’s girlfriends/boyfriends, cousin’s wives, friends of the family, etc. means to her. Her whole family is so important to her so close and if they didn’t like me…I don’t know what I would do.

_They’ll love you, Ni. I certainly do._

“You can be quite cheeky yourself sometimes,” I said smiling, staring into her sea green eyes and planting a long kiss to her lips. She shrugged with a goofy smile on her face and I laughed.

“I love you, Lauren.”

She held up her thumb, index, and pinky finger shyly and I smiled and kissed her cheek. Man, I really did love this girl.

We finished our ice cream and by now it was well into the evening. It was chillier and quieter and slowly more people disappeared from the now almost empty park. We sat huddled close together under the tree by our table and looked at the stars.

“Do you remember when we came here after the movie?” I whispered. She nodded yes with a heart melting smile.

“I remember where the big dipper is,” I said giggling. She let out a soft snicker and tucked her head under my chin.  She pulled her board from the grass and scribbled a quick  _sing please? :)_

I happily obliged.

“I can be your hero baby. I can kiss away the pain. I will stand by you forever. You can take my breath away…” I continued singing random verses and choruses of songs I knew she liked until I could hear her breathing slow and I looked down to see her eyelids resting above her green eyes.

“Do you want to sleep here tonight?” I asked her chuckling. She nodded a sleepy yes and tucked herself into my arms and I tightened my grip around her middle. I draped my sweatshirt over the two of us and continued singing until I myself drifted into my slumber.


	13. Chapter 13

*Rachel’s POV*

We hung out around mine and Lauren’s flat for a while but I decided it would be much easier for Lou if we were at his house. He didn’t have to travel back and forth and I could always visit him if he needed me, if I ever planned on leaving his side again. It was fucking two hours that he wasn’t next to me and he had been in a freaking car crash.

“I want to stay here with you,” he whined as I grabbed the keys to the car and held open the door for him. He sat put on the recliner with his arms folded over his chest and his lips pursed out like a child. I rolled my eyes and silently chuckled as I made my way towards him. I bent down and placed my hands on his knees and planted a small kiss to his lips, making his smiled stretch wide enough for his eyes to crinkle up the way I loved.

“Please? I’d feel much better if you were at home. I’ll be there with you,” I whispered. He nodded and I helped him to his feet – well foot – and handed him his crutches. We rode down the elevator in silence and listened to the radio for most of the ride with a little conversation in between. He still felt awful about what happened with El and truth be told so did I. She was gorgeous. Why didn’t he go back to her? Why doesn’t he just dump me and get it over with?

When we arrived at the boys’ flat, Harry was the only one home. Liam and Zayn had gone out for a bite to eat. He was sprawled out on the couch and was lazily flipping through the channels of the TV. As he saw us walk through the door, we were greeted with a smile from the dimpled cheek friend of ours.

“Hey Lou hey Rach!” he shouted from the sofa. Lou gave him a friendly wave of the hand and I said hello.

“Do you guys want to be alone or? Because I can go upstairs if you’d like,” he offered tapping the off button on the remote and tossing it to the side. I was about to protest but Louis spoke first.

“Thanks Hazza,” he said with a nod. Haz nodded back and patted Louis’ back on the way up the stairs.

“He could’ve stayed,” I said to Louis as I plopped down on the couch.

“Ah, but that is where you are wrong, malady.” He eased himself onto the cushion next to me before he guided my lips to his with a finger on my chin. I smiled into our kiss and he did the same and I felt so incredibly comfortable and happy in that moment.

“I love you,” he said quietly. He cupped my cheek in his palm and began slowly stroking my cheek with his thumb. I rested my cheek against his hand and whispered, “I love you too.”

“No, Rach,” he said stopping abruptly, his tone more serious, “I really, really love you. I do. And I am so, so sorry about this El thing. I’m sorry for what she said to you. What she did to you. What she did to us, I’m just sorry for it all. But I need you to know. And I need you to understand, that I did not, nor did I want to at all, kiss her. She was the one that kissed me. She thought she could prove something to me by doing it. She thought she could prove that she still loved me or I still loved her. I don’t remember. All I remember during that kiss was thinking about you and praying you were not seeing that. I was prying her off of me and turned around only to see you running off in the other direction. And can I tell you something? I felt my heart fall to pieces when I saw you like that. You were gone. You were out of my sight and I thought I had lost you for good. I know your policies. You hate cheaters. You can’t stand them. That’s all I remembered at that moment. And to make it all worse, it was right in front of you. I can’t tell you how awful I felt about it. Then, you know what I did? I turned to her and told her exactly what was going through my head. I told her she was a fucking whore. I told her she had made me feel like the best person on earth when we were together, then to cheat on me, then to choose him over me, then to come back and ruin another relationship with someone I loved very, very much. I told her what she did was put me through hell. Then, it was like she was dragging me through hell and it was never ending. I told her I didn’t give two shits about fucking Daniel. I told her I didn’t give two shits about her. I told her I hope she understood what it was like to feel like you weren’t good enough. And then I realized: this was how you were feeling the minute she kissed me. But, Rachel, you need to know that you are good enough. You are too good in fact. I am honestly the luckiest man on earth to think that you went through all of that and still found love for me. I’m lucky just to be able to be talking to you right now, Rach. I love you, Rachel Jensen. You need to understand that. I need you to understand that. But, I also understand, that if you don’t think you can forgive me after what had happened, then it is fine. I’ll let you go. But I also want you to know, that no matter where you are, what you’re doing, how we are doing, or how long it has been since I have spoken to you, I will always be here for you. You can hate me and you can leave me and you could never talk to me again. But just know that I will love you, no matter what.”

I felt a small tear trickle down my face and I turned away so he couldn’t see, but I was a bit too late.

“I’m sorry, Rachel. I really am. Please don’t cry,” he pleaded.

_God damn it, Tomlinson, shut up you’re making it worse._

He lifted my chin up and I wiped away any tear stain on my cheeks and let out a sniffle before gathering up my composure.

“I love you, Louis. I’m not leaving. I forgive you. It’s oka-”

“No! It isn’t okay, Rachel! It is awful.” I couldn’t take it anymore so I just slammed my lips against his and he snaked his arms around my waist and we were in a whole other world. I felt safe and I felt happy and I didn’t want to be anywhere else but in his arms. So, that’s exactly what I told him.

“I love you, Lou.”

“I love you more, baby.” He cuddled me into his chest and we sat there in silence for a while before he started singing.

_Hey there Delilah what’s it like in New York City?_

_I’m a thousand miles away._

_But girl tonight you look so pretty yes you do._

_Times Square can’t shine as bright as you._

_I swear it’s true._

And before I knew it, his angelic voice had me drifting into sweet dreams.

—

We were jolted awake by the sound of a doorbell ringing. Louis began getting up but I pushed him lightly by his chest so he landed right back on the couch.

“I got it. You rest your leg,” I said in a motherly tone. He smiled and pulled his casted leg onto the couch so it was leveled. I speed walked to the door and swung it open only to have a thousand bad memories and thoughts rushing to my head from the sight.

“Who is it?” Lou called from the couch, flipping on the telle. I turned to him with pain in my eyes and he mirrored my expression. He got to his feet and crutches as soon as he could and hobbled over to the door.

“Oh my god, Lou! Are you okay? I hear about the crash in the news and I just-”

“Eleanor I told you to stay the fuck away.”

“I can check on a friend can’t I?” she asked him so innocently. He stood behind me and I was getting ready to close the door but she stepped in the way into the house.

“Move, slut,” she muttered to me.

“Eleanor! My girlfriend is not a slut! Get out!” he shouted at her.

She started laughing really hard and took a few minutes to regain herself before speaking. “She’s  _still_ your girlfriend? Really? Wow! You must be pretty pathetic to still be with someone who cheated on you. You must really have no one else to turn to if you’re still with the person that picked another girl over you.”

“It’s not like that,” I said as firmly as I could, although I sounded weaker than I wanted to.

“El, get. The. Fuck. Out. Of. My. House.” Louis was getting really pissed off and I was afraid he was going to do something awful.

“I will, under one condition. Kiss me.”

“Hell no!” he shouted back.

“Why not? Are you afraid you’ll feel that same spark of longing for me like you did with our last kiss?”

“No, first of all, no one feels anything special from kissing a whore. Secondly, I love Rachel. I love her more than anything why can’t you just leave us alone?”

“Because you feel something for me, Louis Tomlinson, I know you do. you’re just too afraid to admit it. I don’t know why though. I just don’t understand why you would stick with this poor, pathetic, obese, ugly excuse of a human being.”

“THAT IS IT!” I heard a voice cry from upstairs. We all turned towards the stairs to see a raging, red faced Harry storming down each step. He stepped in between El and Lou and I and stared her right in the face. Louis pulled me to the side and planted kisses on the very few tears I was allowing to slip from my ducts, while he whispered sweet and encouraging words into my ears that ended with ‘I love you’ every time.

“LOOK, BITCH. YOU CAN NOT COME IN HERE AND THINK THAT YOU HAVE THE FUCKING RIGHT TO STOMP ALL OVER THIS PERFECT RELATIONSHIP. YOU PUT LOUIS THROUGH HELL THE PAST FEW YEARS AND THEN BAM! THIS MAGNIFICANT AND FANTASTIC YOUNG LADY MARCHES HERSELF INTO OUR HOME AND LOUIS HASN’T WIPED THAT GOOFY SMILE OFF HIS FACE SINCE. DO YOU KNOW WHAT YOU PUT HIM THROUGH? DO YOU KNOW HOW MUCH HE HURT AFTER YOU? DO YOU KNOW HOW MUCH THAT HURT THE BOYS TO SEE HIM LIKE THAT? DO YOU KNOW HOW MUCH THAT HURT  _ME_? BUT THEN, HERE COMES RACHEL. SHE’S MADE HIM SO MUCH BETTER. SHE’S MADE HIM SO MUCH HAPPIER. THERE IS NO WAY IN HELL I AM GOING TO LET YOU RUIN THAT. TWO OF MY FAVOURITE PEOPLE ARE HAPPILY IN LOVE  _TOGETHER_. LOUIS AND RACHEL ARE PERFECTLY HAPPY TOGETHER. WHY CAN YOU NOT ACCEPT THAT? WHY CAN’T YOU UNDERSTAND HE DOESN’T WANT YOU? HE WANTS HER. HE WANTS RACHEL. LOUIS WANTS RACHEL. OKAY? JESUS FUCKING CHRIST!”

Louis pulled Harry back to keep him from doing something stupid because Harry was well over pissed now. El was crying and had been the entire time he was shouting. But I could tell no one gave a fuck. She deserved everything he had said.

“You just watch, Louis Tomlinson! You watch her become some sort of little gold digger! She’s going to scam you and run you bankrupt and then you’ll come crying to me. But there is no way in hell I am letting you back in Louis! No way!”

“Believe me, if she ever did something like that – which I know she wouldn’t – you’re the last person I would ever go to. My girlfriend is beautiful, smart, caring, sweet, compassionate, loving, forgiving, and all around perfectly imperfect. And that is just the way I like it. Now, get out of my house before I call the cops.”

“Fuck you! Fuck all of you!” and with that she was out the door. Louis immediately kissed all over my face.

“Don’t listen to her, baby,” he whispered, “she’s awfully wrong about everything. I love you. I love you more than anything.” I just nodded along and let out a few more tears and sniffles which Louis was so desperately trying to get rid of.

In the corner, Haz was running his fingers through his curly locks, taking deep breaths, trying to calm himself down.

“I’m really sorry I went all berserk just now, guys,” he said above a whisper. Louis did nothing but wrap his arms around his best friend. He whispered back and forth but I couldn’t hear what he was saying.  Then, Harry made his way towards me and wrapped his strong arms around my shoulders and I wrapped mine around his waist.

“Thank you. Thank you. Thank you,” I whispered to him, “and don’t be sorry. Thank you.”

“Anytime, love. Just don’t ever listen to her. She was wrong about everything, just like Lou had said,” he whispered back. I nodded into his thin white t-shirt before pulling away and turning to Louis. He wrapped me in his arms again and kissed my forehead multiple times. I soon felt Harry’ s hands around me too and we probably stood like that, the three of us hugging, for what seemed like hours on end.

—

Harry had decided to go hang out with Grimmy that night so it was just Lou and I for most of the time. Lauren had sent me a text that night telling me where she and Niall would be at for the night and I smiled at the thought of the couple curled up under the big oak tree.

Lou and I had ordered a pizza that night and stayed in and watch movies off of Netflix. There was a lot of exchanged “I love you”‘s back and forth and a lot of kissing and hugging and cuddling but I didn’t mind one bit.

It was around 10pm when Zayn and Liam came home and they both went straight to bed with a quick wish of good night from each of them. Around midnight, I was half asleep when Harry came through the door. Louis had been asleep for the past hour and a half. I kept my eyes closed instead of acknowledging Harry because he was probably tired and I didn’t want to disturb him. I listened for his footsteps traveling up the stairs but I heard nothing for a while. Finally, I heard them drawing nearer and nearer to me and Louis. I heard the click of the remote and telle shut down. I heard him place it on the coffee table and his feet shuffled away before coming back again. I felt a soft warm fleece blanket engulf Lou and I. Harry then knelt down and pressed a small friendly kiss to my forehead with a whispered good night.

“Good night, Hazza,” I whispered back. I heard him snicker before I heard his footsteps make their way up the stairs and his bedroom door closed. I drifted off to sleep that night thinking about how safe all of these boys made me feel.


	14. Chapter 14

Lauren’s POV

Niall and I went out to breakfast in a little pancake house nearby the park after we woke up. I had to circle my choices on the menu for Niall to order a bowl of oatmeal for me. I hated this stupid thing. I hated how I couldn’t talk. It wasn’t like I had anything I wanted to say. I just wanted to be able to talk. I felt restricted and I hate feeling like I can’t do something. I know that sounds very stupid but it was the truth. Niall had been trying to help me with my voice now because when I woke up this morning, it barely hurt. The doctor said only a couple days and it had been a couple of days so I was hoping to be talking somewhat by the end of the night.

Niall dropped me off at home and then went to go get some stuff form his house to stay over. I was home alone for about twenty minutes so I took advantage of the time I had and got in the shower. I grabbed my iPod speaker (which I call Ralph) and I plugged Ralph into my phone and hit shuffle.

I was embarrassed to admit it to Niall – well to anyone in fact – but I had and still have a huge part of my heart dedicated to the Jonas Brothers. They were my first boy band and I fell in love with them once they began showing up on the Disney Channel. Rachel was the same way. We kind of shared a mutual interest in everything. There were very few things we didn’t both like or dislike. So, when the song  _When You Look Me in the Eyes_ started blasting through Ralph, I couldn’t fight the urge or the basic instinct to begin singing along. The minute I tried to sneak out a word my voice squeaked and pain erupted in my throat. It wasn’t as bad as yesterday though. In fact, this time it was quite bearable. So I tried again on the next line and it felt easier. So I tried again. And with each line I practiced on it felt like it was getting easier and easier. Finally, by the second chorus, I was singing and I sounded like I had always sounded when I was singing and I felt relief wash over even though it was still burning my throat. I just really loved singing and a little pain couldn’t stop me. I belted out the lyrics and smiled and thought of Niall and my smile grew bigger with each lyric.

_If the heart is always searching_

_Can you ever find a home?_

_I’ve been looking for that someone_

_I’ll never make it on my own_

_Dreams can’t take the place of love you_

_There’s gotta be a million reasons why it’s true_

_When you look me in the eyes_

_And tell me that you love me_

_Everything’s alright_

_When you’re right here by my side_

_When you look me in the eyes_

_I catch a glimpse of heaven_

_I find my paradise_

_When you look me in the eyes_

If felt good to be able to sing again. I’ve always loved singing, even if I wasn’t good or not. I’ve been told I was a descent singer and I really loved to. Just not in front of people.  I didn’t have the confidence or the guts. I could sing in front of Rachel or in front of my parents or even my little sisters. I didn’t mind them. But anyone else, forget it.

I got out of the shower, threw my clothes on, dried my hair and pulled it into a messy bun before shutting of my iPod and opening the door only to have embarrassment pile up in my chest.

“So…Jonas Brothers, huh?” Niall asked with a smile so smug I could just burst of fear. I didn’t know what I should say. I mean, it doesn’t seem like that big of a deal but it was. I hated singing in front of people.

“Shut up, Ni,” I said in a scratchy voice pushing him out of the way and marching into my room to my dresser.

“What? I thought it was good!” he said laughing as he trailed behind me. I don’t think my cheeks have ever been redder in my life. I just let out a groan and it hurt my throat so I gripped it.

“Shut up,” I said again in an even scratchier voice.

“Oh come on,” he said wrapping his arms around my waist, burying his chin into my shoulder, and smiling at me through the mirror on my dresser.

“You shouldn’t be embarrassed about it. Really, I thought it was fantastic. Rachel was right,” he said looking at me through the mirror and I couldn’t fight the small smile that had grown on my lips. He smiled with all his teeth then and attacked my neck and cheek with little kisses making me giggle even though it hurt.

“Shit, are you okay?” he asked me hearing my voice sound like fucking sandpaper. I nodded and swallowed a very hard lump in my throat while he turned me around to face him. I was still in his arms as he placed a light kiss to my forehead and smiled down at me.

“You’re so beautiful,” he whispered into my hair.

“Not too shabby yourself” I said back.

“Thank you,” he giggled, “but you have to stop talking. Besides, you’re beautiful voice isn’t the same with that scratch to it.” I blushed then and he spun me around his finger and we walked back out into the living room.

“Holy fuck,” I muttered looking at the piles and piles of clothes and trash and whatever other messes were in our flat.

“It’s not very ladylike to swear ma’am,” Niall accused pointing a finger at me.

“Don’t fucking tell me what to do, bitch,” I said laughing. Although I instantly wish I could take it back because I probably sounded like a bitch. But he just laughed so I guess I was alright.

“You were saying?” he asked raising his eyebrows.

“This place is a pigsty,” I said looking around the room once more, “Help me clean.” He obliged and told me he’d get all the garbage while I got the clothes. I sorted it into piles of dirty and not dirty. I then sorted out the dirty pile into colors. The clean pile I tried to sort into piles of Lauren or Rachel but we can hardly ever tell who owns what so we just kind of put the article of clothing into whoever’s dresser has room. The only time we could really tell is if it was someone’s favorite pair of pants or a shirt. For example, I had acquired a pair of navy blue sweatpants from a late uncle of ours and I was the only one to wear them. Rachel, as well, had a pair of gray sweatpants from one of her best friends from secondary school that only she could wear.

After a while of cleaning, I had a few loads of laundry done and Niall had vacuumed the living room and dusted.

“Can you sing?” he asked me in a pleading voice. He looked like a child begging his mom for a toy he wanted in the store.

“No, Ni,” I said, voice still sounding awful. I pointed to my throat and his expression dropped to a frown and he sighed. I looked up at him from the counter behind the kitchen and made a pouty face at him. He smiled out of the corner of his mouth and waved me over. I walked around the island to meet his open arms as they wrapped tightly around my body.

“As soon as you can talk again, I’m making you sing,” he said into my shoulder and I snickered.

“I love you,” he whispered against my ear. I moved my lips to his cheek and placed a slow, long, lingering kiss to it making him blush pink and I chuckled quietly.

—

We finished cleaning after that and by then it was five thirty and we were just lounging around. I decided to pull out my laptop because I haven’t used it in about three days. And that is a HUGE time gap for me. I lean back onto Niall’s chest and rest my feet on the arm of the chair. Both of his arms are stretched out across the top of the couch and I can feel his eyes on the computer screen as I’m typing in the password. After the welcome screen, my computer immediately takes me to the last thing I had open and I was ready to die the minute it came up.

I have a certain folder in my computer. It’s titled “One Direction”. In that folder, I have fifteen other folders. There is:

Harry Styles

Louis Tomlinson

Liam Payne

Niall Horan

Zayn Malik

Larry Stylinson

Lilo

Nouis

Zouis

Zarry

Ziall

Ziam

Niam

Lirry

Narry

When I opened it, Niall’s folder came popping up on the screen. 806 gifs and pictures came flooding on the monitor. 806 reasons for me to go dig a hole to China and never come back now.

“Lauren…”

“Hmm”

“What is that?”

“Um…it’s a computer.” Yeah I was being stupid but I didn’t care. I was trying to avoid the subject. But I knew he wasn’t letting it slide.

“Are those of me?” he took the computer from my lap and put it on his, scrolling through an endless supply of his face. I tried to take it from him but his grip was too strong.

“No, no, no, no, no, no,” he said chuckling and kept looking through.

“Oh my god.”

“806 items?! Are these all just of me?!” he was laughing so hard he was holding his stomach and I just wanted to die. Now, I really didn’t know what to say. What was I supposed to say?  _Yes, Niall, I saved these in my computer because I couldn’t go five minutes without looking at your face even though I have never met you in my life but I hoped I would one day because I wanted to love you and ride your dick._

That was my reasoning for saving them but it’s weird. I know it’s stalkerish and freaky and crazy and insane and just plain weird but I didn’t care at the time. I was in love with Niall Horan and I wish this folder – four years of gifs and pictures I loved – didn’t exist anymore.

“Hey guys!” Rachel said walking through the door at that time, Louis trailing behind her.

“Rachel,” I said giving her the most terrified look, “run.”

“What?”

“Grab your computer and run,” I said as calmly as I could. I see Louis confused look change into a mischievous grin looking at Niall. Rachel gave me the same look I must have been giving her. Suddenly, Ni and Lou dart from their spots towards Rachel’s room and Rach and I ran after them. We almost caught up to Niall but Louis wrapped an arm around each of us and holds us back while Niall grabs our computers. Niall begins explaining to Louis from the bedroom.

“They have folders of all of us on their computers where they save gifs and pictures and stuff on it.”

“Niall don’t!” Rachel yells from Louis grip. Holy shit he was strong.

“Lauren has 806 of me, 512 of Harry, 615 of Liam, 718 of you, and 563 of Zayn.”

Louis starts laughing and his nerves and muscles loosen up and we are able to break through it but Niall quickly shuts the door and locks it.

“Oh fuck,” I whispered to Rach even though we’re both chuckling.

“She has those ‘ship’ things too! They both do!” Niall shouts through the door. he names them off: all of them.

“Ziam: 563

Zouis: 94

Ziall: 112

Zarry: 73

Narry: 215

Lirry: 32

Larry: 426

Lilo: 167

Nouis: 316

Niam: 183”

“Lauren, what did you do with your life?” Louis asked me through a fit of laughter. My cheeks were bright red and Louis was killing himself from the lack of oxygen but he didn’t seem to mind one bit.

“NIALL HORAN OPEN UP THIS DAMN DOOR OR THIS IS THE LAST TIME YOU’RE IN OUR FLAT” It hurt to shout like that but someone needed to. There was silence from the other side of the door before he slowly opened the door and stepped out laughing. Rachel ran and grabbed both computers and was back in a second and handed me mine.

“Aw, come on mate! You know she was blushing!” Louis said still chuckling and pinching my cheeks.  He’s right, I was.

“Sorry, Lou,” Ni said wrapping his arms around my waist and pressing a light kiss to my lips. He kept his eyes on mine as he continued, “I could never take that risk.”

“Blah! You’re such a sap, Niall.” Louis said shaking his head.

“Hey,” Rach chimed in, “don’t act like you have never been as sappy as he’s being,” she giggled. He smiled at her and wrapped his arms around her and gave her an Eskimo kiss making both of their smiles light up. Louis wasn’t able to not be sappy around Rachel. He only did it because he loved her (plush he’s trying to brown-nose her for the El thing but we don’t count that). None of us brought it up though. Louis wasn’t the type to be sappy, seeing it as kind of girly, so no one wanted to pick on him for it. He couldn’t help it and it didn’t bother anyone so why point it out?

“Now what?” I asked looking at the other three as we all stood cramped in the narrow hallway.

“Well, Rachel and I were going to catch a movie. You guys wanna come?”

I looked at Niall and he pursed his lips a moment. “Nah, we’ll hang back here…pretty tired actually.” I nodded in agreement. I was pretty exhausted from the cleaning.

“Yeah we did a lot of cleaning today,” I said to Rachel with a proud smile. I was quite lazy and honestly Rachel was like the mum of the house. She could cook and she did the cleaning. Don’t get me wrong, ya know, I cleaned too but just not like her. She was very precise on where things go and stuff like that. So I just let her be to her work.

“Yes, I noticed and I am quite impressed!” she said offering me a high five which I gladly returned.

“Ni, did you clean too?” he gave a proud nod of the head and was rewarded with a high-five himself.

“Alright, well we better get going.” Louis said.

“Wait, can we have dinner guys? Been a while since we all had a meal just the four of us.” I pointed out.

“Is this your way of asking me to make dinner because the two of you would burn the building down?” she asked raising her eyebrows at me. I gave her a pleading smile and she rolled her eyes smiling.

“I’ll make a quick pizza…sound good?” she asked pointing to all of us. Lou, Niall and I nodded and unison and she strutted off to the kitchen.

“Can we put flaming hot Cheetos on it?”

“Of course, Lauren,” Rachel shouted from the kitchen and I smiled. We all sat in the living room and chatted. Soon, the buzzer went off and the Cheetos needed to be put on.

“I’ll help with the Cheetos and table,” Niall said following Rachel into the kitchen.

That left Louis and I in the living room alone. I eyed his leg in cast for a while before he caught my attention.

“How ya doing, kiddo?” I smiled at him and glanced down at my casted arm.

“Eh, I’m doing just fine,” I shrugged, “you?”

“I’m alright, yeah.” I nodded.

“I-I’m really sorry, Lauren.”

He caught me off guard then. “What for exactly?”

“What do you mean what for? If it weren’t for me, you wouldn’t be wearing that cast and you could talk like a normal person.”

“Lou-”

“No, Lauren. Do not blow it over and pretend like it is all okay. You do that a lot and it’s only because you’re too nice. You came to my house because you wanted to help me. You talked me through it because you wanted to help me. You helped me get the girl I love back because you wanted to help me. You’re a good friend, Laur; a fantastic one even. And now how do I pay ya back? I get you in a fucking car accident. I’m sorry. And thank you. You helped  _a lot._ ”

I stood up in front of him then and smiled down at him. I held my arms out and he smiled and stood from the chair he was seated in. he wrapped his arms around my shoulders and mine snaked around his waist.

“Thank you,” he whispered.

“Always,” I whispered back and he planted a light – strictly friendly of course – kiss on the forehead.

—

Louis and Rachel left after dinner and decided to go back to Lou’s place so Niall and I stayed here. We watched the telle and played Uno for a while before he had fallen asleep on the bed. I couldn’t sleep and I really didn’t know why. I was tired. So I grabbed my phone off of my nightstand and carefully lifted myself from the bed. I plopped down on the couch and folded my feet into my chair. It was 11pm here so it was around 3pm back home. I dialed my cousin’s number and he picked up after two rings.

“Lauren!” my late 30’s cousin, Matt, shouted through the phone. I used to live a mere five minutes from him and babysit his children almost every day. It was weird not seeing the kids still so I decided to give them a ring.

“Hi, Matt!” I smiled into the phone.

“Hey how ya doing? You’re mom told me you got in an accident.”

“I’m fine, I’m fine. Just couldn’t sleep. Thought I could talk to the kids.”

“Yeah, one sec – Alex!” he called his now 10 year old son. There was muffling sounds on the other line until I heard his bright voice that I missed so much on the other end.

“Hi Lauren!”

“Hey bud, what’s up?” he went into this story about his friend at daycare and how he got good grades this year and I couldn’t help but smile.

“That’s good, that’s good.”

“Gimmie da phone, Alex!” I heard from the other end.

“Is that Kyle?”

“Yeah… Kyle go away!”

“No, bud let me talk to him, please. I’ll be out there in a few weeks okay? Then you can tell me all of your stories then, alright?”

“Alright,” he sighed.

“I love you!”

“I love you too, Lauren. Here’s Kyle.” More muffling. Kyle was about 5 now and was starting his first year of school in a few weeks.

“Hewo?”

“Hi Kyle! How’s my boy?”

“Good. Ima go to school dis year.”

“I know I heard! Are you excited?”

“Yeah, mommy took me shoppin for folders and crayons and markers.”

“Sounds fun bud, how’s Squid?” I asked him. Their little sister Kaylee was often referred to as Squid ever since she was about three weeks old.

“She’s good but reawwy loud.”

“She has to be loud around you and Al and your big mouths.” He giggled through the phone and I felt like crying because I missed him so much.

“Daddy says I have to go now,” he said with disappointment.

“It’s okay bud. I’ll see you in a couple of weeks, okay?” he shouted with joy and said bye and the line went dead. I snuck back onto the bed and got under the covers. Niall’s hands wrapped around my waist and pulled me into his chest.

“Love you,” he grunted in a sleepy tone.

“Love you too,” I smiled. I fell asleep thinking about the boys. I missed the little rugrats so much.


	15. Chapter 15

*Louis' POV*

Three fucking weeks with that damn cast on my leg. I got plenty of sympathy presents in the mail and at my doorstep from fans. Now, walking into my room, everywhere you turn is a muffin basket or a puppy dog or an ‘I’m beary sorry’ teddy bear. Man, those things were lame. But I finally got it off a couple days ago and Lauren got her arm cast off. Now we were standing in the airport waiting to catch our flight to Chicago. I didn’t want her to know, but I was really, really freaking out. On the outside I smiled at her and acted like your average day Louis Tomlinson. But on the inside, I felt as if my stomach was folding itself inside out. Niall didn’t seem nervous and I know he wasn’t masking his emotions like I was. I know because Nialler was shit at lying. He would always blush or laugh uncontrollably. The only reason he got away with stuff is because he was so cheeky and so innocent like, no one could be mad at him for longer than two minutes. He is and always will be a cheeky bastard.  
“Louis!” I snapped my head up to look at Rachel from my seat in the plastic blue chair. I had been staring at my entwined fingers for the past fifteen minutes lost in thought.  
“Sorry, love,” I said standing up and grabbing my bag. I planted a light kiss on her forehead and smiled down at her. I wrapped my arm around her waist and walked with her into the airplane.  
I guided her through the narrow walkway with my hand on the small of her back. She had a smile bigger than the moon on her face while she was staring at the ground as we walked.  
“Are you okay?” I asked her my voice dripping of sarcasm. Although, I couldn’t help but smile myself either. I loved her smile.  
“Just super,” she giggled smiling up at me now. She was so excited to see her family and it scared me. Rachel and Lauren were ridiculously close with their family. It wasn’t just a few aunts or uncles either.  
“How many aunts and uncles did you say you have again?”  
“Well, on the Jensen side, there are a total of nine siblings. That’s including my dad and Lauren’s mom. But, one of our aunts on that side died before we knew her. She was a great sister from what I hear. And, on the Doyle’s side, there are ten. That’s including my mom and Lauren’s dad. But again, an aunt of ours died before we were born. She was great too.   
“There’s 17 of them?” I said feeling nerves shake my whole body. Holy fuck, that was quite a bit of people.  
“Well, there’s also their spouses, their kids, and for some of them, their grandkids too. And you can’t forget about friends of the family. Like, there are the Palmers and the Boylans and the Kellams. And there is also Lauren’s mom’s best friend’s family the VanDursens. Also, Lauren’s neighbors the Botts’s. They have a little boy named Zane who’s about four now.”  
“How do they spell it?”  
“Z-a-n-e,” she answered. I scoffed. The poor kid had his name spelt wrong.  
I swallowed a hard lump in my throat. That had to be over 75 people. That was a lot of people I had to impress.  
“Lou…” she said in a questioning tone.  
“Hmm…what?”   
“Are you okay?” I didn’t answer her but just kept my focus on positioning the carryon luggage correctly in the overhead.  
“Louis, are you worried about meeting my family?”  
I avoided making eye contact but nodded my head slightly and she sighed.  
“I’m sorry, Rach. I just really love you,” I said pecking her cheek, “and I’m not good with parents, let alone like…a bazillion relatives. It’s going so great right now. Can’t we just live in our perfect little world of Rouis right here in London?”  
She started laughing uncontrollably and I heard Lauren muffling laughs from behind us but I chose to ignore her.  
“What did I do?” I asked with bright red cheeks.   
“Nothing, nothing, you just…you said Rouis.” Rachel said still laughing really hard.  
“Yeah…you know like Rachel…and Louis…makes Rouis.” She nodded and took a sip of her water to calm herself down. I felt like I was just going to burst of embarrassment.   
She wrapped her hand around mine for a silent apology and I smiled out of the corner of my mouth.  
“You’ll be fine, Louis. They’re going to love you. And if they don’t…well it’s going to suck. But I’ll still love you just as much and I’ll still be with you. Nothing will change that.”   
I smiled with reassurance.   
“You’ll still love me?”  
“Of course, I might even love you more. It will be like a forbidden love.” she said in an over dramatic voice.  
“You’re such a sap,” I said squeezing her knee making her squirm. That was her tickle spot.  
“Whatever.”  
“Hey, I have a question,” I said.  
“Shoot.”  
“What side of the family is Lauren on?”  
“Both,” she answered. What the fuck? How the hell did that even work? I must have looked confused because she explained it.  
“You see, my mom is Lauren’s dad’s sister and my dad is Lauren’s mom’s brother.”  
“…and that’s not incest?”  
“Ew, no, that’s gross!”  
“I still don’t understand.”   
She sighed and pulled a pencil and notebook from her backpack and turning to a clean sheet of paper. She drew a diagram.  
  
“Do ya get it now?” she asked me after like ten minutes of explaining. I nodded and I did it still seemed a little fucked up but I got the gist of it.  
Lauren and Niall were in the seats behind us and they were constantly laughing and giggling. And frankly, they were both bugging the hell out of me. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I love them both. But in that moment, I swear I was going to punch them.  
“Guys, shut. the. hell. up,” I said jerking my head around.   
“Sorry, Lou,” Niall said through a fit of laughter, “Lauren just told the funniest joke I ever heard.” He couldn’t seem to get any words out so Lauren spoke up.   
“When’s the best time to go to the dentist?” she asked giggling and Niall started cackling louder. I raised my eyebrows waiting for an answer.   
“Tooth hurty,” she giggled and Niall bent over in his seat, clutching his stomach, his face bright red and scrunched, and a hard loud laugh erupting from the back of his throat.   
Rachel started laughing too and soon I was surrounded by idiots.  
“It’s not even funny,” Rachel said laughing.  
“Wait, wait, I got one,” Niall said trying to calm himself down.  
“What did the frog say when he pulled the taxi over?” he paused to chuckle before answering.  
“Can I get a ride? My car just got toad!” Everyone started laughing and it wasn’t even that funny.  
“Oh god,” I muttered turning around to face forward again.   
“What did Bambi say when he went to church?” Rachel asked.  
“OH DEER LORD,” she cackled and I rolled my eyes.  
“You’re not funny,” I told her.  
“If you don’t think I’m funny, maybe we should… sea otter people,” she giggled out. Lauren laughed with her and I didn’t think she was serious but I was too afraid to take the risk so I decided to play along and make her happy because…you know…I love her.  
“But I don’t want to be….owl by myself,” I sighed and everyone laughed and I decided not to be a grump and laugh along too.  
—  
The flight was about twelve hours long and Niall and Rachel were quickly asleep. I thought everyone was asleep until I heard Lauren begin to hum behind me so I turned around.  
“I thought I was the only one awake,” she whispered with a smile. I shrugged and carefully turned myself so I wouldn’t stir Rachel awake.  
“So did I,” I whispered back once I was comfortable.   
She was silent for a moment before she pulled her one earphone out of her ear and set her phone down.  
“She was right ya know.”  
“Who was right about what?”  
“Rachel was right about the whole family situation. They’re going to love you, especially the Jensen side. They’re all quite sarcastic and laid back and crack a lot of jokes. They never take anything too seriously either and make you feel comfortable right away.”  
“I don’t know, Laur. No matter how alike I am to them, I’m not good with families. I don’t make a good impression. I know I seem like a wanker when I make jokes sometimes because they can be a bit insensitive but I don’t mean any harm.”  
“I know, Louis,” she nodded.  
“It’s only a week,” she said after a minute, “even if they hate you – which I doubt they will – it’s only a week before we’re back home in London.”  
“We will be,” I said gesturing towards me and Ni.  
“Oh please, our parents are not going to make us stay home the week before we start school.”  
“They could! You don’t know,” I whisper shouted causing Niall to stir a bit but he went back to snoring right away.  
“I do know, Lou. Everything will be alright. Just be yourself and don’t be nervous. Oh, and be a little more…proper or professional around some of the Doyle aunts. We love them all and they’re great but sometimes they can be quite…high maintenance.”  
I shrugged and nodded at her.  
“You’ll be great, Louis.”  
I patted her knee and smiled at her and she slipped her earphones back in her ear and I drifted off to sleep with Rachel’s head on my shoulder and my ear on her head.  
—  
We hopped off the plane and now it was around 10 am here in Chicago. We were seated in the Midway airport after getting our luggage and waiting for one of their family members to pick us up and take us to Lauren’s.   
“Who’s picking us up?”  
“His name is Matt. He’s a cousin of ours and we used to babysit literally almost every other day.”  
“How old is he?”  
“He’s about 36, I think,” she answered.  
I nodded. I don’t think it should be too hard with a cousin.  
“He’s kind of like a brother to us you know,” Lauren said turning away from Niall’s lips for a minute.  
That was it. I only knew one person to call for help about this stuff and I needed to call before I meet just one of them.  
“I’ll be right back. I have to use the loo,” I muttered to Rachel before starting to walk back.  
“Louis?” she called after me. I turned around and she gave me s goofy smile.  
“We call it the bathroom here,” she informed me and I just rolled my eyes before marching off again.  
Once I was out of their sight I pulled out my phone and dialed 5 for the speed dial number. It rang twice before there was another person on the line.  
“Hey Lou”  
“Liam, I need your help.”  
“What’s up mate?”  
“I don’t know what to do. They’re so ridiculously close to everyone. All of their cousins are like a brother or a sister. That’s including second cousins too. And a lot of them are older guy cousins. They can all easily gang up on me if they don’t like me. Niall will be fine because he’s just likeable. No one can actually hate him. He’s too nice. You know I can be a shithead all of the time. What if I say something a little too insensitive or I can’t stop making jokes? They’re going to hate me, Li, and I just know it.”  
“Louis, calm down,” he said slowly.  
“You know I am getting pretty damn tired of hearing those words because they don’t take that much effect.”  
“Well they need to start. No one can ever stay mad at you either Lou. Everyone loves you. You’re hilarious. You’ll be fantastic.”  
I felt my phone buzz against my ear and I pulled it away to check.  
From Rachel: he’s here. If you’re doing what I think you’re doing, you can just wait until we get to the house. I’ll take care of it for you;)  
To Rachel: you wish. On my way out. Be there in a sec.  
“I gotta go. Wish me luck, man,” I muttered.  
“Good luck!” and then I hung up the phone. I strutted out to where we were to see everyone looking for me.  
“There he is,” I saw Rachel say to a man, I am assuming Matt, and smile at me. Matt looked about mid-30s and he had short cut black hair that was hidden by a red, gray, and white Blackhawks cap. He had a white t shirt on over his beer gut and some raggedy old jeans. He didn’t look too hard to impress.  
“Hi,” I said awkwardly, sticking out a hand slowly towards Matt. He eyed me for a moment before shaking it.  
“Hey, I’m Matt,” he said in a deep voice.  
“I’m…Louis.”  
“Hey, Erma, he has the same name as that gay boy you used to have a crush on. You know, from One Direction.”  
“Matt!” she said hitting him, her cheeks bright red.  
“What?”  
“I – um – I am Louis from One Direction,” I stuttered.  
“You must be pulling my leg,” he said looking at Louis.  
“Did he call you Erma?” I asked.  
She nodded awkwardly and I felt my cheeks heat up quickly.  
“It’s a nickname. Matt, apologize,” she urged.  
“No, it’s okay. I get that from a lot of people. It’s just because I’m in a boy band,” I said nodding.  
“Well, yeah, but she used to talk about Lar-”  
“Look there’s Lauren with Niall!” Rachel shouted cutting him off. I followed her eyes to see Lauren and Niall giggling as they made their way back from a pretzel stand.  
“Laurch!” Matt shouted at Lauren and she smiled so bright. She ran from Niall to go hug Matt and Matt pulled Rachel in too and they were all laughing.  
“Laurchel’s back!” he shouted as he let them go. Niall took a stance by me waiting to be introduced.  
“Matt, this is Niall,” Lauren said pulling Niall forward, “Niall, this is my cousin Matt.”  
“Hello,” Niall said extending his hand and smiling. Matt took the hand and shook it.  
“So, you’re from One Direction too?” Matt asked him.  
“Yep!” Niall said chuckling.  
“Well, Laurchel, you finally did it I guess,” he said wrapping an arm around each of them and they giggled.  
We headed back to the car and Rachel held my hand the whole time. I love when she holds my hand. She’s so cute.  
Matt led us to a red car parked in a handicapped spot.  
“Matt, you know this is for handicapped, right?” Lauren pointed out.  
“Well, no one caught me! It’s all good,” he defended. She just rolled her eyes.  
Niall volunteered to sit in the front with him and I sat in between Rachel and Lauren in the back. Niall and Matt seemed to be getting on quite nicely which just made me look like a chump. Matt was a big drinker just like Niall and they were bonding by arguing over which beer is better: Corona, Miller, or Budweiser. Niall said that all American beer was much weaker compared to Irish drinks. Matt liked Budweiser better and Niall said he liked Corona and Miller the same but both were better than Budweiser. I sat quiet in the back while Lauren and Rachel reminisced and caught up with Matt. He kept calling them ‘Laurchel’ and finally I had to ask.  
“What is a Laurchel?” I said kind of quiet and only to Lauren and Rachel. They both started laughing and Matt kind of gave me a look that I didn’t appreciate.  
“Laurchel is Lauren + Rachel,” Lauren said.   
“They…ship you?” Niall asked.  
“Well, not like that but…it’s a thing,” Rachel explained.  
“It’s a thing?” I repeated and the girls both giggled.  
“Yeah, silly,” Rachel confirmed leaning in for a kiss.  
I placed my hand on her shoulder to stop her as I felt Matt’s lingering glare on me. She looked confused but I just smiled and took her hand in mine, placing them both on her lap.  
“So, what’s the deal here?” Matt asked. “Are you guys – you know – like…dating?”  
“Umm, yeah, Matt,” Lauren answered, “Niall is my boyfriend and Louis is Rachel’s.”  
“And – um – how’s that going for ya?” he asked now feeling awkward.  
“I think it’s going pretty great,” Niall chimed in smiling, “Both of the girls are just spectacular.”  
“Yeah,” I muttered.  
“Both?” Lauren questioned smiling goofily at Niall.  
“Well, yeah, there’s no denying Rach is too. But she’s not as spectacular as you, princess,” he chuckled.   
She leaned forward and placed a kiss on his cheek.  
“Alright, alright,” Matt said pushing Lauren back into her seat, one hand on the wheel and eyes on the road.  
We were all laughing and Matt just shook his head, glaring at Lauren through the rear view mirror.  
“Do you even have a seatbelt on there, Laurch?” he asked her hastily.  
“Well, of course, Matthew. Click it or ticket is my motto when it comes to driving,” she said with a wink, “but most seatbelts are stretchable.”  
“Well, kissing boyfriends is not one of the reasons for the elasticness of a seatbelt,” he argued.  
“‘Elasticness’ isn’t a word, Matt. Elasticity is though, if you wanted to actually say the correct form of the word.”  
“Ra…uh Ky…er Lauren,” he said annoyed.  
“Sorry, Matthew,” she responded. Although it was quite obvious that she wasn’t but they let it all blow over. I liked that they didn’t linger on the annoyance of one another. That’s how the boys and I were. That’s probably why we rarely – if ever – fight.   
—  
The rest of the ride was just talking about the family and this ‘not-so-surprising’ surprise party Matt was driving us to at Lauren’s parents’ house. It wasn’t so much of a surprise because 1) Matt flat out told us there was a party and 2) Lauren said they weren’t expecting anything less from their family.   
Matt mentioned certain members of the family like his kids, who honestly, I was ecstatic to see. They were all very, very important to Lauren and Rachel and they just sounded so cute and fun to be around. I literally could not wait. He also mentioned Lauren’s younger sisters and Rachel’s older, ‘never-mentioned’ brothers. There were three of them for God’s sakes! How could she not mention them? She talked about her family all the damn time.  
One of Rachel’s brothers had a wife who they kept calling her ‘Big’ instead of a real name which I thought sounded quite rude. Anyway, ‘Big’ apparently had a son named Mason who was about a year and a half now so they seemed pretty excited to see him too. Lauren told us to look out for her sisters. From what I heard, they sounded just like my sisters. She loved them to death but bringing us meant really stupid questions and embarrassing stories. I was actually quite excited to hear what embarrassing stories.

“You didn’t mention she had brothers,” I muttered to Lauren while Matt was rambling on about some sports game to Niall and Rachel was on the phone with her mom.

“You didn’t ask,” she answered in a smug whisper and I shot her an annoyed look and she tisked.

“Sorry, but I wouldn’t worry about them too much. They’re sweet.”

“Yeah to you guys they are. But their only sister – little sister in fact – is bringing home a boy from a foreign country who they have never met before. It doesn’t work out that well for me.”

She snickered and I tisked quite loudly.

“What’s wrong, Lou?” Rachel asked hanging up the phone and gripping my knee.

“Um – I – Lauren poked my ribs too hard,” I blurted. Rachel reached over my lap and punched Lauren’s knee.

“Ouch!”

“Don’t hurt my baby,” Rachel warned glaring at her.

“Still here,” Matt reminded us.

‘Sorry,’ I mouthed to Lauren who just nodded her head and looked out the window.

—

We pulled up to Lauren’s parents’ house at around noon. Their family wasn’t very good at surprise parties because there were tons of cars on the street, people in the garage drinking beers, and a radio blaring from the backyard.

Lauren and Rachel practically ripped their seatbelts off and flew out of the car.

“Lauren! Rachel!” two boys shouted in unison from the front porch. They both darted towards the girls who were already crouched down on the pavement driveway. The boys almost knocked them over as all of the eight arms tangled together to form one big group hug. It was like watching one of those cliché movies when there’s a reunion amongst loved ones. Normally it would be quite sappy but it was actually the sweetest things I have ever seen. I watched the spectacle in admiration. Those boys looked as if they had been waiting ages for that one hug.

“We’ve missed you so much,” Rachel muttered into the older boy’s shoulder.

“We missed you too,” he replied.

“Look how big you’ve gotten, Screech!” Lauren said to the younger one.

“My name’s Kyle,” he laughed back making them all laugh.

The girls stood up and guided Kyle and his brother to where Niall and I were standing awkwardly.

“This is Alex and Kyle. They’re Matt’s kids,” Rachel introduced

“Hi Louis!” Alex shouted at me with a big smile. My face instantly lit up and I was gleaming.

“You know my name?”

“Yeah, I know all of your names,” he responded.

“Well do you know who I am?” Niall asked now excited.

“Umm…no I forgot.”

“HA!” I blurted sticking my tongue out at Niall who tried to shove me over but ended up tripping over his feet and falling himself. Rachel and I busted out laughing and Lauren tried to stifle her giggles as she bent over to lift him up. Rachel snuck up behind her and kicked her in the bum making her fall on top of Niall. I was on the floor laughing now and so were the other boys.  Lauren stood up and helped Niall up and she was laughing so hard. She tried to make a straight face at Rachel but Rachel slapped and arm around her shoulder and smiled.

“N I P,” she laughed and Lauren started laughing more.

“You’re a shithead you know that right?” Niall whispered to me and I just shook my head smiling.

“C’mon, guys,” Lauren said waving us over. I entwined my fingers with Rachel and gave her a kiss on her temple when I heard her sniffle.

“Are you crying?” I asked her. She just shook her head and wiped her eyes quickly.

“It’s going to be an emotional day so you just be prepared.”

I nodded and placed another kiss to her cheek.

“I love you,” I whispered.

“I love you too.”

We entered the garage to find a group of mostly uncles and a couple other cousins. They were all pretty polite. I think I could do this. We met their Uncle Ricky, Uncle Jerry (who was rather short. I felt a little awkward as I towered over him), their cousin Chad who they call ‘Chud’, Uncle Joe, and their cousin Jenna with her husband Mike.

“Time to go in,” Lauren said smiling at Rachel and she smiled back. We marched up the two wooden steps and swung open the door that led from the garage to the foyer.

“We’re home!” they shouted running up the stairs, Niall and I trailing behind. Everyone seemed so excited to see them and Lauren ran to a short tan woman and wrapped her arms around her neck while Rachel ran to a taller blonde woman next to her. That must be there mothers. This is going to be  _a lot._ Niall and I stood behind against a wall as we watched everyone rush to give their nieces, daughters, sisters, and cousins hugs and kisses. Then we were introduced to the group.

“Okay, this is Niall,” Lauren said hugging him.

“And this is Louis,” Rachel said hugging me.

“Hi!” everyone shouted at us. Then the girls went around the room.

“Okay, this is Aunt Kathy, Aunt Cyndi, Aunt Diane, Aunt Patti, Aunt Janet, Aunt Roseanne, Aunt Lori, and Aunt Laura.” They walked around the room giving each one a hug and kiss on the cheeks.

“And this is my mom,” Lauren said motioning toward the short tan woman she hugged earlier, “mom you spoke to Ni on the phone a few weeks ago, remember?” the woman nodded happily and Niall shook her hand.

What? No fair, Niall got ahead in this whole meeting the parents business.

“Nice to finally meet you, Mrs. Doyle. Lauren’s told me a lot about you,” he said with a smile.

“And, Louis, this is my mom, Karen,” she said about the blonde woman she hugged. “Mom, this is Louis.”

I shook her hand and I could almost feel the sweat dripping down my arm. I was so nervous!

“Hi,” I said quietly.

“Hello, nice to meet you!” she responded happily.

“It’s nice to meet you too, Mrs. Jensen.” What else was I supposed to say? I didn’t know. So I said the first thing that came to my mind.

“You’re daughter’s a wonderful girl,” I said quickly, so quickly I couldn’t stop myself.

A bunch of AW’s rang from the room from the many aunts around the room and I felt my cheeks burn red.

“That’s so sweet of you, Louis,” her mother cooed.

“Okay, well were going to go in the back and say hi,” Rachel said tugging on Lauren’s shirt.

“Okay, have fun!”

“But just a warning for you four,” Lauren’s mother began, “both of your fathers are back there.”

I shot a worried, terrified, petrified, urgent look at Niall who was giving me the same expression. I swallowed a hard lump in my throat and followed the girls down the stairs.

We stepped out onto a patio with an outdoor granite table and matching chairs and umbrella. They had a huge backyard with a swing set, volley ball net, bags, a pool, and a horseshoe pit set up. Even with all of that, there was plenty of room in the middle to roam.

“Look who’s here!” an older boy, older than us, yelled with a smile. He was very tall and a bit scruffily looking. He was tan and wore glasses, plaid blue and white shorts, and a plain white t-shirt.

“Z-boy!” the girls shouted running towards him and pulling him into a hug. Then, out of nowhere, a  _bunch_ of guys that looked to be about ‘Z-boy’s’ age tackled the three of them into a big hug. I’m serious there must have been like ten at least. They were all laughing and smiling and shouting and, even though they were her cousins, I still felt a bit of jealousy build up in me. No, not so much of jealousy, but more of envy. I just wanted to be the one hugging her. Maybe it wasn’t even envy. Maybe it was just fear.

“Okay, okay, okay!” Rachel shouted pulling Lauren by her arm out of the massive pile of cousins.

“Guys, we have some people we’d like you to meet,” Lauren said turning around and smiling at us. Niall and I wearily stepped forward as the other guys lined up in a line. Man, they were all pretty tall and big.

“Okay, going down the line, we have: Zach (pointing to the one they called ‘Z-boy’), Jeff, Brandon, Bret, Kenny Palmer, Anthony Palmer, and Nick Kellams,” Lauren said smiling at them. Okay, well maybe there wasn’t ten exactly, but there were seven and that was about seven too many,

“Jeff, Bret, and Brandon are my brothers,” Rachel clarified and three of the boys waved at us.

“Guys, this is Niall and Louis,” Lauren said slowly, her cheeks already blushing red.

“Oh, didn’t even start school, and you guys are already bringing home boyfriends?” Anthony questioned with a wicked smile.

“Anthony,” Rachel said.

“Which one of you is dating my sister?” one of the older looking ones, Jeff, asked sternly.

“Um – uh – that would be me,” I stuttered.

“And you’re Niall?”

“No, um this one here is Niall,” I said patting Niall on the back, trying to sound a bit more confident than I actually was. I didn’t.

“Oh, so you’re Louis?”

“Yes, sir”

“Has he been good to you, Rach?” Brandon asked not taking his eyes off of me.

“Brandon,” she warned.

“Has he?”

“Yes, he’s great, Jesus,” she scowled.

“Oh relax, Rach,” the one on the end, Nick, said.

“We’re just making sure. We don’t want to have a reason to pound the kid’s face in,” Kenny chuckled. Oh shit.

“Guys!”

“Oh, come on, boys,” a girl with blonde hair said as she walked next to Kenny, setting a elbow on his shoulder.

“Yeah, you guys don’t need to be scaring them off,” another blonder girl said while walking with a short haired brunette. They all looked to be around the same age as their cousins.

“Sorry,” Zach muttered to us.

“You better be sorry,” a very short girl with raven black hair said from behind him and he smiled at her.

“Niall, Louis, this is Sarah,” Lauren said gesturing towards the first blonde that spoke.

“And that’s Sara. She’s Bret’s wife,” Rachel said pointing at the other blonde girl.

“But she’s Sarah with an H,” Bret smiled at the first Sarah. This was going to be confusing.

“And this is Taylor,” Lauren said hugging the black haired one, “she’s Zach’s wife.”

“And that’s Big, she’s Jeff’s wife,” Rachel said about the brunette one. She wasn’t big in anyway. I don’t get it.

“Big?”

“Well, her name is Katie, but we call her Big because Lauren’s sister is named Katie. So, it’s Big and Little,” Rachel explained. Oh, I guess that made sense.

“or Medium,” Bret chimed in.

“Yeah, she’s too big to be called Little now,” Zach smiled.

“Taylor, Sarah, Sara, Big, this is Louis and Niall.”

“It’s nice to meet you guys,” Taylor said with a smile.

“It’s nice to meet you too,” Niall said back.

“All of you,” I added.

“Wait, are you Irish?” Zach asked pointing at Ni.

“Yeah, I am,” he said nodding.

“Well, I thought you were all stuck up Brits,” Brandon laughed.

“Can I get some crumpets for me tea?” Bret cackled.

“Guys, stop it!” Rachel shouted.

“It’s okay, love,” I whispered.

“No, it is not,” Sara said hitting Bret in the arm, “I’m sorry about that Louis.”

“It’s quite alright. Really, I get it all the time.” I wasn’t lying. I really did and you just sort of get used to it now.

“Well, it was nice meeting all of you,” I said nodding my head.

“Yeah, nice to meet you too, man,” Nick said with a smile.

“MyRach! Lauren!” I heard a super excited voice yell from behind us. We turned around and there on the patio was a short blonde woman with bulging eyes and a huge smile.

“Cindy!” Rachel yelled running at her full speed. They locked into a big embrace before finally letting go and Rachel looked like she had a couple more tears on her cheeks.

“My turn,” Lauren said smiling at her. She hugged Cindy this time and they were laughing.

“Who are those two kids?” Cindy whispered to Rachel. She wasn’t very good at whispering.

“They’re super cute,” she added making me smile to myself.

“Cindy, that’s Louis and Niall.” Lauren said smiling and Ni and I both waved at her. She smiled and wrapped one arm around each of us.

“You don’t need to be so shy, boys,” she smiled.

“Sorry,” I said with a weak smile. By now, the other seven boys and their wives left to continue their American football game and the girls to continue talking.

“I like this one,” Cindy chuckled pointing at me. I felt a little too proud of myself then.

“What about me?” Niall said spreading his arms out, smiling.

“I like you, Ni,” Lauren said snuggling into him.

“Really? What a coincidence because I like you too,” he said giving her a butterfly kiss.

“Aww! You two are so cute!” Cindy cooed and they both laughed.

“What about Lou and I, Cin?” Rachel asked smiling at her and wrapping her arms around my waist.

“He looks like a keeper to me!” she gleamed. This lady seemed really important to Rachel and I am glad I got her approval.

“How have you guys been?” Cindy asked sitting us down at the granite table.

“We’ve been good,” Lauren said nodding her head.

“Real good,” Rachel confirmed plopping herself down on my lap, wrapping her arms around my neck and smiling down at me through her thick rimmed glasses. I loved her glasses a lot, but I also loved when she took them off to go to sleep at night because I could see her sparkling blue eyes. They were quite magnificent.

“Can I get a kiss?” she whispered in my ear.

“Mm, nope, I don’t really feel like it,” I whispered back as Lauren and Cindy carried on a conversation.

“Please?” she pouted her lip and – well – I could never resist her puppy dog face so I pressed a light kiss to her lips.

“Hey, no need for that!” Nick shouted at her while tossing the ‘American’ football to Kenny.

“Shut up, Kellams!” Rachel yelled back.

“Yeah, shut up!” Cindy added and the girls and Niall and I started laughing.

“You said it Cindy!” another woman shouted walking onto the patio.

“Karen!” Lauren shouted and they both jumped up and hugged the woman. Wow, this was a lot of people.

So, yeah, we did the introduction thing again. Karen and Cindy were like second and third mothers to Rachel and Lauren was very fond of them too so they were really important to the girls. It made it easier to know that in the end, they both already loved Ni and me.

“Girls!” a man’s voice shouted from the shed nearby.

“Dad?” Rachel called back. Oh shit, here we go.

Just then, two men marched their way to the patio and their smiles couldn’t have been brighter. The girls got up and ran to each man. They both looked quite different.

Lauren’s dad was kind of tall and had a tan cap over his scruffily brown hair and bags under blue eyes. He had freckles all up and down his pale arms and a bright red face and nose. Rachel’s dad was a little bit shorter. He had just like a buzz cut over a shiny tan head. He was definitely a lot tanner than Lauren’s dad. He had brown eyes and worry lines. They both were a little on the heavier side but they weren’t like fat or anything. Just a little bigger was all.

“Dad, this is Niall. He’s from One Direction. Niall, this is my father, Patrick.”

“How’s it going, son?”

“I’m fine and yourself?” Niall asked shoving his hands into his pockets after shaking Patrick’s.

“Not too bad. You’re from One Direction?”

“Yes sir.”

“What are you doing here?”

“Um, daddy, mom didn’t tell you?” Lauren asked worry leaking from her expression. How can Niall be as calm as he looks right now?!

“She didn’t tell me he was from One Direction.”

“Well, surprise!” Lauren smiled. He just nodded his head and offered a curt ‘Nice to meet you’ to Niall before walking away. I think he got off easy.

“Rodman, this is-“  
“Louis, I know. You’re mother told me. Nice to meet you,” he said quickly, holding out his hand. I shook it and he smiled just a bit at me.

“I don’t know how I feel about this,” her dad said.

“Sir, listen, I have been so incredibly worried about coming here this week to meet you guys. And so far, I have been proven wrong. I have only been here maybe a half hour and I already feel welcomed. Your family is wonderful. And, so is Rachel. She’s a blessing in my life and I am doing everything I can to keep her safe and happy. I hope you understand how much I care for your daughter.”

Her father offered me a full smile now and nodded his head of approval.

“Good, I’m glad. Now, go enjoy yourselves! I’ll have all week to see you guys but you’re relatives only have a day.” And with that and a kiss to Rachel’s head, he walked away.

“Why didn’t you make a good speech like that?” Lauren asked Niall hitting him in the stomach.

“Ow! I’m sorry baby,” he muttered, coiling his fingers around her hand.

“We have to find my sisters,” Lauren said guiding Niall by his hand to the door to the house.

“Maybe Squid, Emilia, and Grace are in there too.” Rachel added.

We raced into the house, up the stairs and down this narrow hallway into a bright yellow and purple room lined with fairy wall paper. There were a huge pile of little girls of varying ages sitting around.

“They’re here!” one shouted jumping up and soon Lauren and Rach were toppled with little girl cousins.

“Is that Niall?” a short blonde girl with a frankly quite annoying voice asked.

“And Louis?” a short brown haired girl added.

“Mhm,” was all Lauren said.

“HI! OH MY GOD I LOVE YOU GUYS!”

“WE ALL DO!”

“Girls, calm down,” Rachel said settling them.

“Line up according to age,” Lauren added. Lauren was sloppy and unorganized but she still managed to be a perfectionist when it came to certain things.

“Okay,” Rachel said starting at the line.

“This is: Emilia, Katie (the middle sister of mine), Grace, Erin (the youngest sister), Sophie, Lilli, Maddie, and Squid.”

“They all look so different,” Niall commented. He was right. Some were tan and some were pale. Some had bright blonde hair and some had dark brown.

“My name is Kaylee,” the last one said in the cutest voice. She had light brown hair and bright blue eyes. She kind of resembled Rachel a little bit and I couldn’t help but wonder what Rachel’s and my daughter would look like.

“I thought you liked when we called you Squid, Squid,” Lauren smiled.

“Well, only the fa-mi-ly can call me that. Itsa spe-cial name.”

“They are kind of like family, Kay,” Rachel threw in. it warmed my heart to hear that.

“Oh, okay. Rachel said you guys can call me Squid,” she confirmed beaming up at us.

“You are so cute,” I cooed and she giggled.

—

So that was basically the day. We ran around greeting relative after relative after relative and they all seemed to like Niall and me pretty well. We played games of basketball and football and “soccer” with their little cousins and then with the older ones.

They had good food and good music (which Rachel said was playing off of the “RodPod” which was her father’s iPod). We went swimming and played bags and volleyball. It was like a reunion and it was wonderful to be welcomed into this huge family. There were a lot of nicknames and names to remember and Rachel often reminded me with ‘name checks’ which I got better at as we continued through the day. We all ended up around a bonfire in the backyard telling stories about the girls when they were little and when they were teenagers and we shared some stories from since we met them. We talked about how we met and things of that nature.

“This is nice,” I whispered to Rachel as she was perched on my lap in this foldable chair.

“They like you.”

“I like them, too. I’m glad they like me.”

“I told you. You didn’t have to be nervous at all.”

“I guess not.”

She smiled and kissed my cheek and we listened to the memories of the Jensen/Doyle family. I think this is going to be a fun week here in Chicago.


	16. Chapter 16

(Niall’s POV)

            We had a great first night at the party. Louis seemed pretty relaxed after we met the family and I was having a lot of fun. Lauren seemed really happy being back with her family. She had a smile on her face that hasn’t left since she saw Matt at the airport and I loved every minute of it. I’ve never seen her so happy. She was especially excited to see Alex, Kyle and ‘Squid’ (although I liked the name Kaylee better). They were pretty important and pretty damn cute if I had to admit it. I was excited to get to spend a day with them today. Rachel, Louis, Lauren and I were staying at a hotel. However, we decided to get different rooms but they were right across the hall from one another. It was cheaper for one bedroom rooms and both couples wanted privacy.

            After I got out of the shower, I made a call down to the front desk to request someone to bring breakfast up to us. We decided all four of us would meet up at noon to head over to Matt’s that day and I wanted to spend every minute I can with Lauren. I know it sounded selfish because she was here to see her family but she’s going to be away a lot soon. She has this week in Chicago and then we would get home and she’d spend the rest of next week getting ready for school. I didn’t have much time left with her and I wanted every second I could muster up.

            Lauren’s iPod was playing in the faint background as I kept myself busy waiting for her shower to finish up. As I was making our bed I could hear her singing and I smiled to myself.

             _I’ve been spending way too much time_

_Checking my tongue in the mirror_

_And bending over backwards_

_Just to try to see it clearer_

_But my breath fogged up the glass_

_So I drew a new face and I la-a-a-aughed._

Rachel was right when she told me Lauren could sing a bit. Actually, it was more than a bit. She was pretty damn good if I had to say so myself. I heard the water shut off but the music was still playing and the song changed so I listened to her sing more.

_And the waitress is practicing politics_

_As the business men slowly gets stoned_

_Yes, they’re sharing a drink they call loneliness_

_But it’s better than drinking alone._

“Sing us a song you’re the piano man,” I sang through the door. She paused the music as she giggled and I laughed too.

“Sing us a song tonight,” she sang back through the door. She creaked open the door and gave me the most dazzling smile. “We’re all in the mood for a melody.”

“And you got us feeling alright,” I whispered and she opened the door fully (with clothes on – damn it) and I pulled her in by her waist.

“That Billy Joel is quite the man,” she smirked and I kissed her nose.

“Yes he is,” I agreed. I pressed my lips against her jaw and she giggled against my cheek. God damn it I love that laugh. “You’re cute,” I commented.

“You’re not too bad yourself.” There was a knock on the door before a bell hop shouted ‘room service’. I reluctantly let go of Lauren to answer the door.

“Breakfast is served,” I said walking in with two bowls of ice cream.

“Ice cream?” she asked surprised.

“Why not? It’s a vacation. You’re supposed to do weird things on vacations, aren’t ya?”

“I suppose so, yes.”

“Then eat up, babe. We only have a little bit of time before we have to pry Lou and Rach off of one another.” She smiled and took a spoonful of ice cream and slipped it between her lips. She frowned a bit but quickly wiped it from her face and smiled at me. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing, I’m fine.”

“Tell me. Do not lie to me, Laruen Rose,” I said with a stern voice but a wicked smile.

“I’m not lying, Niall James,” she countered. I let a few moments pass by before I opened up my mouth again.

“Please?”

“Niall, it’s nothing.” I raised my eyebrows at her and waited for her answer. Because what she just told me was not good enough. She huffed out a sigh before speaking.

“I normally have sprinkles,” she muttered.

“Really?” I asked her smiling.

“I said it was nothing!” she shouted with a cackle.

“Here, I got it,” I said walking over to our stuff. I dug through the snack bag until I found a little bottle of her favorite rainbow sprinkles.

“You brought sprinkles?”

“Well, Rachel was joking about how much you love sprinkles and how you should carry around like Buddy does with his syrup in  _Elf._ So, I figured you would want these at some point.” I sprinkled them across her chocolate ice cream and she smiled at me.

“Thanks, kid,” she said ruffling my hair and I shook her away playfully.

We finished our breakfast and when we were both dressed and ready, we headed across the hall. We knocked on the door but they didn’t answer. The only sound on the other side of the door was muffled giggling. Lauren pulled a key out from her pocket.

“What are you doing?” I asked her.

“When we checked in, I asked the bellhop to give me an extra key to their room, just in case.”

“Smart,” I chuckled as she slid the card in its place. She swung open the door and we walked in only to find Rachel and Louis crawling on the floor and pillows, sheets, and blankets scattered all around the room.

“What the hell?” I asked and Rachel started laughing.

“You built a tent?” Lauren asked.

“Well, what else were we going to do?” Louis countered and I could see the same devious look on both Lauren and Rachel’s faces.

“Oh shut up,” I said rolling my eyes at them and everyone started laughing.

—

We got in the taxi that drove us to Matt’s little town house. Lauren sat in the front seat which I was very disappointed because I wanted her to sit by me. Instead, I got stuck sitting by the two love birds in the back. They were kissing and cuddling the whole way there and I just wanted Lauren by me.

We pulled into the little driveway and I hopped out of the car. I opened Lauren’s door and held my hand out to her

“Malady,” I smiled and she took my hand in hers. We walked up to the door hand in hand trailing behind Louis who was giving Rach a piggyback ride. Rach rang the doorbell and we heard footsteps dashing to the door and plenty of little shrill voices shouting ‘I wanna get it’ and ‘let me answer it’ and ‘they love me more’. Finally the door swung open with Matt standing there and the children close behind him.

“Laurchel!” he shouted and they gave him a hug.

“Matthew!” they shouted back in the same tone.

“Hi guys,” Lauren smiled down at the kids who all gave her big hugs. Rachel followed suit and then the kids gave me and Lou high fives.

“Rachel guess what!” Kyle shouted as they all marched behind us into their living room.

“What’s up bud?” Rachel asked.

“That’s my nickname,” Alex muttered so quietly I thought only I heard him but Lauren put an arm around him and hugged him.

“I’m going to be a hockey player when I am older,” he announced proudly with his adorable smile.

“Oh are you now?”

“Mhm, daddy said I could play for the Blackhawks.”

“Sounds like a plan,” I chimed in and the kid smiled at me.

“Will you guys come to my games when I play?”

“Of course bugga,” Lauren said kissing his head.

“Bugga is a baby name.”

“Okay, Screech,” Rachel chuckled.

“Call me Kyle!”

“Sorry, Kyle.”

“It’s okay. I liked the names when I was little but now I’m a big boy like Alex.”

“I’m still older,” Alex said. Kyle stuck his tongue out at him.

“Alright that’s enough of that,” a woman with blonde hair said walking into the room. I remember seeing her yesterday but I don’t think I had a formal introduction.

“Hi Fran!” the girls shouted getting off the couch and rushing to hug her.

  
“Hey girls!” she laughed hugging them both.

“Hi,” I said waving.

“Hi,” Louis repeated.

“Hello, boys,” she smiled.

“Alright, what’s the plan for today?” Matt asked clapping his hands together.

“Well, Matthew,” Lauren said with a smirk.

“Remember that promise you made me ages ago?” Rachel asked with the same grin.

“Jesus Christ…” Matt sighed.

“Oh come on, Matt! You should teach the kids to fulfill their promises…”

“What’s going on?” I asked and glanced between the two girls.

“Alright, alright, everyone get in the van,” Matt said in a tone of defeat and everyone ran out the door.

“I got shotgun,” Lauren and Rach shouted at each other.

“I said it first.”

“No, I clearly said it first.”

“It doesn’t matter who said it first because Fran is coming with. I am not watching all of you by myself,” Matt said shooing them to the back.

“Matt, we’re nineteen and eighteen years old I think we can handle ourselves,” Rachel argued.

“You could, but you have your boyfriends here and…” he leaned closer towards the girls and whispered so the kids won’t here. The two busted out laughing but they had red cheeks like they were embarrassed.

“Where are we going?” Louis asked in an antsy voice. Louis doesn’t like surprises because surprises means there is something going on that he doesn’t know about.

“Chuck E. Cheese,” Rachel smiled and Lauren high fived her.

“Really?”

“Yes, really, Louis. Matt made a promise from when we were like nine years old.”

“And he has to fulfill that promise,” Lauren added.

“It sounds like your boyfriends there don’t want to go,” Matt said with a smirk.

“I want to go,” I said.

“Please, Louis?” Kyle begged and I knew Louis couldn’t say no to the kid because 1) he’s really important to Rachel and 2) he was so damn cute.

“Sure, kid,” Louis nodded with a smile and then with a sigh from Matt we were off to Chuck E. Cheese.

—

“I’m going to cream you,” Louis announced to Rachel as we approached the next game.

“I hope so,” she muttered and Louis broke out laughing.

“Ew!” Lauren shouted and slapped Rachel on the arm.

“Oh, come on, love. You’re just a bit jealous because you and Niall haven’t made it past second base,” Louis chuckled slapping and arm around my shoulder. Lauren’s cheeks went bright red and I felt my face get hot too.

“Shut up, ya wanker,” I mumbled elbowing him in the gut. He backed off then and sat down next to Rachel on the little red stools in front of the game. I took Lauren’s hand in mine and kissed her still tomato red cheek.

“Sorry about that, Laur,” I mumbled into her ear. She smiled and wrapped her arms around my neck and pressed her lips to mine. I snaked my arms around to the small of her back and pulled her closer.

“Jesus, I didn’t mean for you to have sex right here!” Louis shouted.

“What?!” I heard Matt’s voice sound and Lauren pushed me away.

“Louis there are kids around,” Lauren mumbled slapping him on the shoulder.

“Shit – oh I mean dang it.” Lauren face palmed as Matt got closer.

“What is going on over here?”

“I – uh,” Louis mumbled.

“Lauren,” Matt said in this annoyed tone he seemed to always use when it came to these two.

“What do you mean ‘Lauren’?! I didn’t do anything!” she yelped.

“Well, you were just making out with your boyfriend,” Rachel said with a stern voice.

“What? In a child’s play center you decide to…ya know…date?” Matt questioned.

“Matt we already were dating,” Lauren argued with a shit eating grin.

“Lauren.”

“Matt,” Lauren smiled copying her tone. It seems the only way to get Matt off your back was with sarcasm because the girls both use it all the time.

“Just don’t do all that,” Matt said waving his finger around emphasizing the word ‘that’.

“Of course,” Lauren smiled bowing a bit and Matt just rolled his eyes.

“Alright, let’s just play.” So we sat down on the stools by Rachel and Louis and inserted our tokens. I wasn’t sure what the name of the game is called. It’s the one where you squirt with the water gun into the center hole and it makes your character travel up to the top/ you race with other people and whoever makes it to the top first wins. In the end, Lauren crushed both Louis and Rachel’s dreams of winning by her getting to the top first while Louis and Rachel were left in a close spot. They were so close you couldn’t even tell who was farther.

“I beat you,” one would argue.

“No, I did,” the other would counter. It went on and on for five minutes before I could see it driving Lauren insane.

“It doesn’t matter who was farther along the track! I won and you guys tied why can’t you just leave it at that!?” Lauren shouted and they both rolled their eyes.

“Thank you,” I muttered and Lauren smiled at me.

“Hey do you see your cousin anywhere?” I asked Lauren glancing around.

“No,” she said puzzled. “Why?”

“So I can do this,” I whispered before pressing my lips against hers. She locked her lips to mine and slipped her tongue between my teeth. I pulled away and smiled at her pushing the hair out of her face.

“What was that for?” she asked me.

“Does there have to be a reason?”

“I guess not.”

“Just consider it a ‘congratulations’ on your little win.”

“Well thank you,” she said pressing a light kiss to my jaw.

“Anytime”

—

We made it back to Matt’s house where we decided to just chill for the rest of the day.

Matt was planning on cooking burgers and hot dogs so he invited us to stay which we did.

“Can we go to the park?” Kyle asked after his TV program ended.

“Yeah, sure little man,” Lauren said ruffling his wavy light blonde locks.

“Where’s the park?” Louis asked.

“It’s right down the street.”

“Be back when the streetlights are turning on, okay girls?”  Matt shouted from the kitchen.

“Sure thing,” Lauren said and as we were heading out the door I felt a hand on my shoulder. I turned around to see Matt with one hand on my shoulder and another on Lauren’s.

“And uh, we don’t need to get too friendly there, ya hear?”

“Yes sir,” I gulped. He patted my back – a little too hard might I add – and for the first time in being here I felt nervous about her family.

We headed out the door, trailing behind Louis and Rachel and the kids from our little conversation we had with Matthew.

“Look at them,” Lauren smiled watching as Rachel and Louis swung Kaylee back and forth between them.

“Yeah, they’re gonna be cute parents don’t ya think?”

“I do think so, actually.” She was quiet for a minute and smiled down at Kyle who was racing Alex to each new crack in the pavement.

“I think we might be too. If the time ever comes,” I mumbled and she beamed at me.

“Can someone push me on the swings?” Kaylee shouted as we got closer to them.

“I will,” I piped up and she wrapped her little hand around two of my fingers and pulled me forward.

We reached the park sooner than the other five and I had Kaylee pulling me forward.

“The swings over there,” she pointed and then let go of my hand and dashed forward. I followed behind her and watched as she struggled to get onto this swing. She tried to go head first which ultimately led her to landing on her stomach. She tried standing in front of the swing and lifting herself onto it but she couldn’t quite stay on right. Finally, I bent down in front of her and lifted her from the ground and placed her on the swing.

“Thank you,” she muttered with a small smile. I stood behind her and helped her get started by giving light shoves against her back. She squealed as her stomach churned from the new heights she was reaching and I loved how happy she was getting.

“Hoy, mate! Ya gotta teach her how to do it herself. That’s the only way she’ll do better.” Louis sat on the swing next to Kaylee and smiled at her and waited for her swing to slow down. “Okay, what’ya gotta do is you gotta sway your legs to and fro. Like this:” and he demonstrated for her by ‘swinging his legs to and fro’.

“To and fro? Really?” Rachel asked as her, Lauren, and the boys approached.

“I thought it was some clever word play.”

“You’re a loser,” she said before sitting on his lap and pressing a light kiss to his lips. In all honesty, I love Rachel and Louis together. She makes him so damn happy and I love the happy Louis. He hasn’t been so happy lately and I don’t get like it. I don’t know. He’s just really great with her and she’s really great to him.

“If he’s a loser, why do you like him?” Kaylee asked.

“Well, I’m a loser too so it’s all good, Squid.”

“I don’t think you’re a loser Rachel. You’re like the coolest girl I ever met. You’re tied with Lauren because I can’t pick between you two though.” Kaylee cooed and she looked so sweet.

“Thanks, kiddo. You’re cool too.”

“I want to be cool like you guys though.”

“Well ma darling,” Louis said smiling at the little tyke. “Step one of that wish is to learn how to swing.”

“Let’s do it,” she said in a little determined voice and holy shit she was so cute. But, I heard Alex laughing from the other side of the park.

“What’s going on over here?” I asked smiling at Lauren who had Alex pinned to the ground, the little pieces of grass springing up around the blonde hair on his head.

“Lauren let me go!”

“No way! it’s pretty sad that I can still do this to you.”

“Lauren!” she hopped off him then and I lifted her to her feet before pressing a light kiss to her cheek.”

“Niall,” I heard someone whisper behind me. I turned around and searched around the park until I saw the source of the voice. Kyle was perched at the top of the tallest green slide.

“What’s up, kid?”

“C-can you help me down? Alex said I am a sissy if I can’t get down, which means I’m a girl.” My initial reaction was to help him down right away but I thought about what Lou had said about Kaylee and the swing so I decided on something else.

“I think the only way to get your brother off your back is if you prove to him you can do it. So, show me, squirt. Go down the slide. I promise nothing bad is going to happen to you.

“Pinky promise?” he asked holding his little finger out to me.

“Pinky promise,” I confirmed wrapping my long pinky around his short one.

“Okay,” he said taking a deep breath as I stood by the slide.

“You got it. Just take it slowly.” So he gripped on to the side of the slide for his life, carefully inching his way down to the bottom. When he finally was about two feet away from the ground, he loosened his grip and slid down the slick slide.

“I did it! Did you see me?”

“You bet I did!” I said high fiving him.

“What happened?” Lauren asked, the others rushing behind her.

“Lauren, Niall helped me go down the slide! The big one!”

“Wow! Did ya have fun?”

“Yeah! I told you I wasn’t a sissy, Alex!” Kyle said sticking his tongue out at his brother.

“Maybe not, it all depends on if you can beat me to the swings!” Alex shouted taking a head start with Kyle trailing quickly behind whining about how it wasn’t fair.

“They’re idiots.” Lauren laughed watching them run off.

“They’re cute.” I added and she nodded in agreement. I glanced over at Louis who was blowing against Kaylee’s stomach and she was giggling like crazy before placing kisses all over Rachel’s freckly cheeks. Rachel was laughing with her and again, they seemed so damn happy. The three of them looked like a little family.

“I think Rouis is gonna make a cute family.” Lauren smiled.

“I think Nauren will too,” I said with a smirk before pulling her by her waist and kissing her soft lips.

“Same.” She laughed.


	17. Chapter 17

 (Rachel’s POV)

            It was 8am when I woke up from birds chirping outside the window. I took a minute to rub my eyes and let my brain haze out and wander back to reality. That’s when it hit me. A smile fell to my face and I jumped from the bed and ran to the bathroom, grabbing my bag on the way. I hopped into the shower to freshen up from yesterday. I got out and pulled a Led Zeppelin cutoff and a pair of jean shorts. I dried my hair and then propped it up on my head into a messy bun and slipped my glasses onto my nose. When I was finished, I glanced at the clock showing me bright red numbers on the night stand: 9:13am. And I looked to the right of the clock to see a sleeping Louis curled up in a ball on his side around the white comforter and sheets. I smiled at him while I snuck up to the bed. I kneeled in front of him and shook him by his side.

            “Mm….stop it; five more minutes, babe,” he mumbled sleepily into the pillow.

            “No, get up and get dressed noowww,” I whined bending down and pressing a kiss to his jaw. He giggled against the pillow and peeked up at me through tired eyes. he suddenly grabbed my waist and pulled over the top of him and flipped on his back, me now straddling his lap. I placed my hands in his and held them on either side of his head and smiled down at him.

            “We’re seeing Bret today,” I told him and he gave me a confusing look. “Bret is one of my brothers.” He gulped down whatever he was going to say and I snickered before pressed a kiss to his lips.

            “That’s a bit nerve wrecking I must admit,” he muttered against my lips, taking a deep breath before latching his lips onto mine again.

            “Bret’s not going to care. As long as you’re keeping me happy, that’s all he really cares about. He’ll be easy. I promise.”

            “Pinky promise?” he asked parting away and putting his little finger in front of my face. I nodded with a smile and wrapped my finger around his. We shook them together before he pulled me back down for a kiss.

“Now,” I said hopping off of him and the bed before pulling him to his feet. His hair wasn’t up in a quiff but rather in a messy bed head style like he had when he was younger. I love his hair in the quiff but I especially loved his messy bedhead because he just looked so simple and adorable that way I had to give him one more kiss, our hands entwined at either side of us. “Go get yourself dressed and I’ll go wake up Lauren and Ni because I can guarantee their lazy asses are still snoring away.

            “Well, yours would be two at 9:23 in the morning,” he scoffed glancing at the clock and I just stuck my tongue out at him. he giggled and placed a kiss to my nose before rushing off into the bathroom and I went across the hall.

            I knocked on the door before sliding my key into the slot and opening it. I walked in only to see Lauren on top of a shirtless Niall with their tongues slipping down each other’s throats on their bed. I was impressed to see Lauren fully dressed, prepped, and ready to go.  

            “Room Service!” I shouted making Niall fling Lauren off of him because I must have startled him. Lauren fell to the side of the bed and crashed to the floor with a grunt.

            “Fuck,” I heard her mutter and I let out a loud cackle. Niall looked at me and gave me a look that screamed ‘I was about to get laid and I hate you for walking in’. he looked down at Lauren and gave her a small smile and offered her his hand. She muttered something incoherent and stood up herself and glared at him.

            “I love you,” he said with a cheeky grin and she just hit him upside the head.

            “Go get dressed,” I laughed and he went into the bathroom. As soon as he was in there, I glanced at Lauren with raised eyebrows and she just blushed. “You guys didn’t even hear me come in.” Her cheeks burned crimson and I slapped an arm around her shoulders. “When’s that going to happen?” I asked her and she pursed her lips like she was trying to remember which fucking day of the week they planned out.

            “I don’t know,” she said after a minute. “Hopefully soon; I’ve been wanting the D for four years,” she whispered and I laughed louder than I should have. Niall walked out with a lost look on his face like he was waiting for us to explain what was so funny. Lauren walked up to him and ruffled his hair and he grabbed her by her waist and pecked her lips.

            “I’m sorry I pushed you off the bed,” he muttered to her and she pecked his cheek.

            “I love you too,” was all she said and I made gagging noises. They both laughed and made little kissy faces at each other and I decided I needed to leave.

            I went back into our room – Laur and Ni trailing very slowly behind – and saw a dressed Louis. He didn’t put his hair up in a quiff today and I liked that he didn’t because today was just going to be a really simple day.

            “Those two are disgusting,” I said in an annoyed tone making him laugh.

            “Did you walk in on them fucking?” he whispered in my ear, wrapping an arm around my waist.

            “No, but they looked pretty close. Lauren’s getting a little impatient,” I snickered and he laughed too, looking at Lauren and she sauntered out of her room with Niall. He beamed at Lauren whose cheeks went red again and Louis laughed a little more before we headed out of the hotel.

            We had a bit of a drive to get to Bret’s. He lived in St. Joseph’s, Michigan, and it was about an hour drive to get there from Chicago. I drove because I knew how to get there best while Louis sat next to me in the passenger’s seat and Lauren and Niall in the back. Lauren was tucked firmly under his arm and she had her eyes closed with her head against his chest. I only knew she wasn’t sleeping because she had a small smile in the corner of her mouth as she listened to my story about the first time we had visited him.

            My mom, Lauren, and I had driven up here for a little New Year’s Eve party Bret was throwing. There were literally only us three, Bret and Sara there. Lauren and I were like fourteen and fifteen at the time and it was around the time when we started liking the boys. When we got there, we sat in the living room with some snacks and played ‘Apples to Apples’ and ‘Balder Dash’.

            “What’s Balder Dash?” Louis asked with a lost look on his face. I tried thinking of a way to explain it but it just seemed too difficult.

            “I don’t really know how to explain it,” I said slowly, still contemplating a way inside my head.

            “Hmm, Lauren?” Louis spun around only to see Niall putting a finger to his mouth and then glancing down at Lauren and pressing a kiss to her head.

            “She didn’t sleep well last night,” he whispered not looking up from her. “I don’t think she slept at all actually because she was up going through her phone at like four when I got up to piss.”

            “Oh yeah,” I said sighing. “She does that sometimes. Maybe once every two or three months she just doesn’t sleep.” Niall’s mouth dropped to a small frown as he kept his eye on her petting her hair and twirling it around his finger.

            I gave Ni a quick glance with a reassuring look and he half smiled at me before I turned back on the road.

            “How about taking your eyes off my mate and putting them on the road, there, love? Don’t need another accident now, do we?” Louis said and I can hear a bit of jealousy leaking from his tone. I looked at him and he gave me an apologetic smile with his wide blue eyes and I patted his knee without looking from the road.

            We pulled into Bret’s driveway and I felt every ounce of excitement build up in me and I felt like I was on top of the world and I could just scream from happiness. My brother is one my favorite people in the world and I barely got to see him because he was always in Michigan and now it’s especially hard because I am living on the other side of the fucking ocean as him. We climbed out and Louis and I started to get the overnight bags while Niall shook Lauren awake. Since we were all the way up in Michigan, we didn’t want to spend an hour driving back to the hotel so we decided to stay here for one night. There wasn’t a lot of room in the small house but it would be enough.

            Eventually, Lauren and Ni made their way to the trunk and I handed Lauren’s bag to her with a smile.

            “You okay?” I asked her quietly so just she would hear. I didn’t want to freak Niall out or anything.

            “Yeah, I’m fine; just needed a little catnap I guess,” she shrugged and I nodded. I slung my backpack over my shoulder and smiled up at Louis. He looked a little nervous so I planted a feathery kiss to his lips and rested my hands on his shoulders.

            “I love you,” he whispered pulling me closer.          

            “I love you, too,” I whispered back and he pressed a kiss to my forehead before we climbed the front steps. Lauren rang the doorbell and I heard feet shuffling down the stairs. The door swung open and I felt so happy to see him I might have cried. “Jet!” I shouted wrapping my arms around his waist. I called him Jet when I was younger: instead of Bret Jensen, Jet Brensen.

            “Hey, kid!” he shouted hugging me back. I don’t know, I just really missed my brother even though I saw him like two days ago. But it was different because I didn’t get to see as much because there were a LOT of people there and I had to see them all. But my brother is someone I absolutely had to see for a day because he’s too important to see for two minutes. I let go of our embrace and everyone cramped into the little doorway. Literally the only things there at the door was like a three foot space for a coatrack or something and then narrow stairs leading you to the main floor. We all marched up the stairs in a single file line because that’s literally all the room we had. At the top there were three doorways: one to the left was a spare bedroom, one straight ahead to the kitchen, and one to the right into the living room. We decided that we would all put our stuff in the spare bedroom tonight and figure out where we were sleeping later. We walked into the living room and Sara was seated on her couch and jumped up when we walked in.

            “Hey Rach!” she shouted wrapping her arms around me while Lauren hugged Bret. The two might not have been close but they both loved each other and Lauren always admired Bret’s general attitude towards life. Sara and Bret dated for nine years before he finally popped the question so she’s been around since Lauren and I were about 5 or 6 so she was pretty important too. Lauren rushed over to hug Sara and I beamed at my brother.

I just felt really happy. So happy, I don’t think I could even express it. I guess it was just because this house always had a peaceful and happy vibe to it. If I’m being frank, Bret and Sara were definitely hippies. But they weren’t the stereotypical hippies with the long hair and circular glasses and the incense and the peace signs. They were just the type of hippies that always went to musical festivals and were always on the low side when it came to wealth. But they were completely content with their little house, their cat, and each other. And I guess that’s why Lauren and I have always admired them because it’s such a simple life style. And that’s the kind of life style we wanted to achieve with our own special some ones. And maybe it was too early to be thinking about this because we were both only like two months into our relationships but I couldn’t help but picture sharing a little house with Louis and having maybe a little boy or girl. And then Lauren coming over with Niall and their little girl or boy to play with our kid and the four of us would lounge around the living room and talk about memories like today. Plus this is the place where we first started to grow a ‘fascination’ with the boys and this is where our lives began to suck a little less and having that memory just made this visit all the more better than I already thought it would turn out to be.

I was snapped out of my day dream by Louis’ stepping in front of me and concern filling his eyes as he tried to shake me back to reality.

“Rach?” he said and I finally found my place and looked at him.

“Sorry, just thinking,” I mumbled.

“Wow, that’s something new. How’d ya get her to do that, Louis?” my brother asked with a cackle and offered Louis a high five which he gladly returned. I gave a glare at Louis who just smiled at me.

“If we’re being frank, you don’t use your head a lot, love.” I slapped his shoulder and he just clutched it like I actually hurt him and giggled before placing a subtle kiss to my hairline.

“Oh, you’re one to talk Mr. ‘I put the milk in the cabinet three times last week’,” Sara mocked and Lauren and I laughed at Bret making him stick his tongue out at all three of us.

“Whatever,” he muttered and I smiled at him.

“So, what’s the plan for today?” Lauren asked Bret.

“Well, I thought we could get some lunch and then head out onto the boat for a little joy ride on the water.”

“You have a boat?” Niall asked with excitement in his voice.

“Yeah, it’s out on the lake. It’s docked a few miles away so it’s a bit of a walk but not too bad.” Lauren and I both groaned at the same time and Bret snorted. “You two are both so lazy,” he teased and we both hit him on both of his arms and Sara laughed.

“C’mon guys! It’ll be great exercise,” she chimed in wrapping an arm around Bret’s waist. We groaned even louder and both Louis and Niall laughed.

“They really don’t do much,” Louis noted and Niall nodded in agreement.

“Yeah, they jus’ lay ‘round all day n make us take em places.” Lauren hit Ni’s arm and he giggled.

“Sorry, baby,” he laughed kissing her cheek.

“Aw, you two are cute,” Sara cooed making Niall blush red.

“Yeah, a little bit too cute,” Bret said stepping in between them and I snickered. Bret was never like that. He was only doing it to give Lauren a hard time which I could understand because I loved making her flustered too. Louis took a small step back from me and looked at the floor.

“Oh, he’s just trying to upset Lauren, Lou,” I said taking his hand in mine and pressing a small peck to his lips.

“Yeah, man, don’t worry about it. Everyone loves to mess with her,” Bret said pulling at her hair. She stepped behind Niall who just smiled shyly at her because I honestly don’t think he would do anything to stop Bret from taunting her.

“I’m hungry,” Louis chimed in and tapped my arm as a signal to pass the keys to my brother to the SUV we were renting. It was the only car with enough room for six people. I threw the keys to Bret who caught them and wrapped his fingers around them.

“Let’s go then!” Sara smiled grabbing her purse from the table and everyone marched down the stairs.

“I think you and Louis are adorable too, ya know,” Sara whispered to me as we trailed behind everyone else.

“Why thank you, Sara,” Louis said throwing an arm around her shoulder and one around mine. “I think we’re quite cute myself.” He blew a kiss onto my cheek making me giggle and blush like crazy.

“Wait, do that again,” Sara said stepping out of Louis arm and pulling a camera from her purse. Louis chuckled before placing his lips onto my cheek and blowing making me laugh again because he was too cute. He put a thumbs-up and the camera flashed.

“C’mon, you guys! I’m starving!” Bret shouted from the driver’s seat. Sara cursed him through her laugh as she climbed into the front seat.

“They seem really cool,” Louis said wrapping his arms around my waist and pecking my lips.

“That’s because they are,” I replied kissing him again.

“I love you,” he whispered.

“You told me that already today.”

“Is there a limit on how many times I get to say it?”

“Not particularly.”

“Good,” he said kissing me again. “I love you.” kiss “I love you.” Kiss “I.” kiss “Love.” kiss “You.” Kiss.

“Come on guys!” Lauren shouted from the back seat and I laughed.

“I love you too.” I poked his nose and he smiled at me before we climbed in the car.

—

Well, I thought the day was somewhat of a success. We ended up going to McDonald’s for a quick bite to eat before we drove down to the dock. I guess my brother had a bit of pity on us because he didn’t make us walk or maybe it was just because he didn’t want to walk either. When we got on the boat, Bret opened a few bottles of beer and handed it to us, even though we were all (besides Lou) still underage here in the states. But, we weren’t doing anything stupid so we were okay. The only really stupid thing that had happened was that at one point, Bret stopped the boat in the middle of the ride to just relax for a while. We were just floating around and Niall was leaning on the side when Lou nudged him a bit too hard (accidentally of course) and he fell overboard. Lauren knelt down to get him and grabbed his hand and tried to pull him up, but instead he pulled her down and she fell in too. They ended up deciding they would take a little walk down the shoreline together instead of getting the seats of the car wet. So on the way home, it was just Bret, Sara, Lou and I.

“So how did you end up in the arms of Louis Tomlinson?” Sara asked over dramatically making me laugh a bit. So we told the story of how we met and talked about Modest (they hated them too) and we then we got onto the subject of the car accident. Louis and I both kind of decided mentally it would not be a good idea to bring up the whole El incident so we just mentioned the car.

“Woah, wait, back up. You got my little cousin into a car wreck?” Bret asked with an annoyed tone in his voice. I don’t think it would have been too bad if no one got hurt but that’s what happened.

“Jet, it was an accident,” I said slowly.

“Yeah, well I don’t think anyone purposely hurts themselves while on the road. You just do it accidentally by being a bad driver.”

“Bret! You heard her. She said that the other driver was the one not paying attention. They were the victims in this. Now, stop yelling at him you’re freaking him out!” Sara smiled at me from the front seat and I gave her a smile as if to say thank you. Bret took a minute before glancing at Louis through the rear view mirror.

“Sorry, man, I just flipped out a bit because I didn’t know you guys were hurt. I mean, Aunt Laurie told us that you were fine but she never gave us details.”

“It’s alright,” he muttered quietly. I wrapped my hand in his and he smiled at me and kissed my palm.

—

            Lauren and Niall came in about an hour after we did and both took showers where Louis and I had already taken ours. We decided that Niall and Lauren would sleep in the living room and Louis and I would take the spare bedroom across the hall after dinner.

            I threw two comforters down on the air mattress: one for Louis and one for myself. I don’t share blankets. Louis smiled at me when I came in the room. He was already lounged across the bed scrolling through his phone.

            “What’ya doing?” I asked plopping down on the bed next to him.

            “Just sending a quick text to my mum. Haven’t talked to her all day and she asked how I was doing.” He gave me a bright smile and cupped my face in one hand before pressing a kiss to my lips. I smiled at him as we pulled away and he set his phone down on the floor before tucking himself under his comforter and pulling me into his chest. I buried my face into the crook of his neck. He was warm and I felt so comfortable being wrapped in his arms.

            “Hey Rach,” he mumbled into the still silent air at one point.

            “Hmm?”

            “What were you thinking about earlier when you spaced out?” I tried to refresh my memory to see if I remember what he was talking about before it hit me.   
            “Well, I was just really happy to be here and I guess it’s because of how simply they live their lives. I think it’s great. They only really need each other and they’re my favorite love story.”

            “Well, what about us?” he asked and I chuckled a tired laugh.

            “Yeah, we’re pretty great too.”

            “What about the simplicity of their life?” he asked after another minute of silence.

            “I don’t know. I mean I know it’s too early to be thinking about it but I would like to have this with you one day. Just a simple little life, ya know?”

            “Yeah, it does sound great. But you know I can afford much bigger houses.”

            “You’re not getting the point, Louis. They’re so thankful for what they have and it isn’t much but they couldn’t care less.”

            “Okay, then maybe, if the time comes, this is what we’ll do. We’ll have a little house and maybe have a couple pairs of little feet running around.” I smiled at the thought of him picturing our future.

            “Yeah? How many pairs of little feet?”

            “Well, what were you thinking? I mean, I know girls plan this shit out their entire life.”

            “I want to have three. One girl and two boys.”

            “Okay, I can do that. Except, I think the house we’ll have to be a little bigger than this. What about names? You got those too?”

            “Ryder, Liam, and Avery”

            “Okay, yeah, no, Liam’s not going to work out. Too confusing. I would like to name one of the boys Tommy.”

            “Tommy ‘the Tommo’ Tomlinson,” I laughed.

            “Damn straight,” he giggled before kissing my jaw. “That means you would be Rachel Tomlinson,” he said it more quietly. It was like he was trying to only focus on how great that actually sounded to him.

            “I think it has a nice ring to it.”

            “Maybe someday, Rach,” he whispered before kissing my forehead. “Get some sleep, bug. Good night.”

            “Good night.”

            “I love you,” he whispered.

            “I love you more.”

            “I love you most.”


End file.
